Saturday, December 24, 2011

12 Days of Christmas Treats

Last Christmas, I did this blog post for the EtsyMom Team showing how to make a 12 Days of Christmas Treat banner. 
This year I wanted to do something a little bit different.  Mainly because I didn't have any place to hang the treat banner from last year that was easily accessible to me.  My son could easily access it anywhere as he is now a giant.  But since I stopped growing 30 years ago, I can only reach so high without dragging out the step ladder.

I decided to make a treat sac that I could hang on his doorknob.  It's bigger than the treat sacs from last year, so I could get bulkier items in it.

 I started with 2 rectangles of cute Christmas fabric - I think it was about 9 x 6 inches.  And a strip that was long enough to go all the way around the top.  I sewed the 2 rectangles together, right sides facing and then pressed the seams open.  Next, I put a button hole horizontally in the strip so that I could pull a cord through the top.  Pin the strip of fabric all the way around the top of the sac.  I folded mine in half and ironed it first so that I would know where the top would be.



 Once, you get it all pinned, sew it up.  I then folded the strip it half at the iron line and sewed it down on the inside of the bag.  I also did another seam around the top edge of the bag.  Then I threaded my cord through the top using a big ol' safety pin.  I tied knots to try to keep it from fraying or getting lost back inside the bag.
 Then, I hand stitched my son's initial, "B", on the front of the sac.  I used felt and embroidery thread.

 Now, all I have to do is put a treat inside and pull the cord closed. 
I did 12 days of Christmas treats, so I started on the 13th of December.  Some treats were really small like a ring pop, or box of jelly beans.  A few were larger items like the Nintendo Power magazine he likes to read.  In all, I spent about $25 on treats for his sac.  This doesn't include gifts or stocking presents for Christmas.

I know it makes it seem like he's spoiled rotten, but he's such a good kid.  He makes straight A's in school, he's so laid back and sweet.  I just wanted to do something extra.  Plus it helps him to get excited about Christmas.
So, I don't care if it seems like I'm spoiling him.  He's my only baby and he's growing up so fast.  I want to treat him special for as long as I can.
Merry Christmas Everyone!

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Short post to start catching up

Ok, I'm trying to catch up on all the blog posts that I haven't made in the past month.  So here we go.

About 3 weeks ago, I got a big pile of fabric in the mail.  I LOVE fabric order days!  Expect to see new aprons coming soon in my Handmade Whimzy shop.  Some of this fabric is scrumcious!



Also, a couple of weeks ago, my sweet hubby talked me into getting a tablet.  One of the back problems I have manifests itself in my shoulder and using my laptop really irritates it.  So, he researched all the different tablets out there and made me go look at all of them until they all just looked the same to me.  I liked the bigger screen size because I'm blind as a bat.  We finally decided to go with the Toshiba Thrive.  It has a full size USB port that I can hook my printer into, or my camera or anything else with a USB port.  This is unlike the Apple Ipad which has Apple specific ports only. 


I really like it so far.  I'm able to surf the internet and do other stuff that I haven't been able to do for awhile without alot of pain.

So thanks to my sweet sweety for thinking of it. :)