The Woodson's on Parade

For Mom's birthday this month, she ask for updated photo's of each of her children and their families. We've always got plenty of the kids, but not much of all of us together.

So we recruited one of our lovely and talented young women from church, who is taking a Photography course at the college, to help us out. She did a fabulous job and shot over 200 pictures.

Here are some of my favorites

(Kissing Ellie's Owie)

Seth (4 1/2) Ellie (2 1/2)

Thank you Danika, you're the best!

(Self-Proclaimed) Cutest Church Bags Ever! Part 2-Girl's

Two cutest things I ever created! And then I made them church bags to match!

This post is all about making Ellie's (girl's) bag, to see how I made Seth's (boy's) bag, click here.

I ended up getting off easy with this bag by finding such a cute jumper to start with. They had already done a lot of the embellishing work for me!

My idea was to use the entire skirt area for the bag, so I just cut off the top of the jumper high enough to be able to fold it over for a top edge without loosing the built-in belt.

I wanted to have a little stiffness and structure to the top so I looked in the cupboard for a plastic container that was the same size around as the waistband. This one was just right. I cut out a strip all the way around just under the rim, then I cut that into 2 equal halves.

By inserting them in their natural 'round' position and sewing the waistband closed around it while the skirt was wrong-side out...

then when the skirt is turned right-side out, it naturally holds the bag closed!

Now this is a loose kind of hold and when the bag is full of all Ellie's treasures it can gap open (but not really sag); if you want a bag that really stays closed you might consider glueing a magnet onto the middle of the plastic strips before placing them in the waistband. Just be sure to double check that you glue them onto the inside/wrong-side of the plastic so they are facing each other when the bag is turned right-side out.

(This is just a picture of the waistband holding itself closed with the help of the butter tub being inverted)

Next I just stitched along the top of the bottom ruffle to create the 'pouch' that changed the skirt into a bag. (P.S. I later came back and moved my seem down as far as I could on the bottom ruffle without it showing past the top ruffle. Turns out the the bag was just too shallow to hold all Ellie's stuff with my original seam placement.)

I then tried to use the ties from the built in belt to make the handle for the bag by 'tying' a fake bow and stitching it into place and embellishing it with a fun button.

This sounded like a great idea, but when I put anything in the purse to test it out it just kind of flopped all wrong. the handles were just in the wrong place to work right.

So plan B: Cut off the bow and button, downsize the belt to be 'fitted' around the back of the waistband, then sew the bow back into place.

This actually worked out better because now the bag looks just as cute from the front or the back having embellishments on both sides.

I found some cute ribbon at the fabric store and after tying a little knot in the middle of my two ribbon pieces/soon to be handles, just because it sounded like a good idea, I sewed them onto each side about equal distances between the center and the outer edge. Now the two handles are perfectly placed and complete ONE CUTE BAG!

(Self-Proclaimed) Cutest Church Bags Ever! Part 1-Boy's

Now I ask you, are they cute or are they cute?! (And yep, I do mean the kids and the bags :o)

A few months ago I decided the kids were ready to have their own church bags to carry a few small, quiet toys, a snack, and Seth's scriptures/Ellie's song book in so that I didn't have to keep cramming everything into my bag. I tried to find some at my favorite shopping spot- the Thrift Store, but it failed me. I found a few that I thought would be ok for Ellie, but when it came to something for Seth nothing looked 'churchy' enough. About the best I could find was a backpack, but I didn't want to distract form his suit he wears. I decided then and there I was going to have to make my own, but I wasn't quite sure what it would be.

Then I got the brilliant idea to make it out of a suit! Well, if Seth was going to have one made out of a suit then it only seamed right that Ellie have one made out of a skirt or dress. So back to the thrift store I went.

(For those of you who don't really care how I made them, now is the time to go straight to "comments" so you can tell me how brilliant I am and how cute they are :o)

For the rest of you, here's what I did:

I wanted to find a suit with a print that couldn't be mistaken for anything other then what it was, then I found a co-ordinating tie.

Let the cutting begin

I took my two main panels from around the big pockets on each side. In hindsight I should have put the right sides together before cutting out the second panel, just like they would be when I was ready to sew.

(I had cut off two shirt points from one of Seth's shirts to see how they would look for the plans I had for the pocket).

I used the long, skinny part of the tie (minus the very tail end) to make a finished edge for the top of the bag. I just unstitched it and folded it over the top raw edge

and sewed it into place.

Originally I had planned to use 4 different ties to make the bag handle out of, but in showing my plans to Aunt Viv, she suggested that she thought it would be cute to somehow make a tie coming out of one of the pockets. Sounded darn cute to me!

I 'tied' my tie by using a small strip of leftover skinny tie to loop around the fat part of the tie at just the right length to come out of the pocket, then just put a few hand stitches in to hold it in place.

(Even though you can't see it, I did include the skinny end of the tie behind , just like a regularly worn tie would have.)

Although I pinned my shirt points in place first, I didn't sew them until after I had placed and sewn the tie in. I figured that it would be easiest to adjust my shirt points that way, just in case my tie moved a bit and they no longer lined up just right. Then I stitched the shirt points onto the pocket flap.

Now this is still a working pocket if it needs to be. I should note that I considered making this into a non-functioning pocket (there is still a plain, but very usable pocket on the opposite panel) by sewing buttons through the shirt points and panel, but I decided to leave my options open for now. I can always change my mind later and add the buttons then.

Next I cut out a strip from each sleeve including the cuff buttons.

I just tucked in the raw edges and sewed along each long side to flatten it out a bit, then I attached one handle to each side panel with the cuff buttons on opposing sides.

Finally I sewed my completed panels with right sides together along the remaining 3 sides, turned right-side out, then...

WaLa! Super cute boys church bag!

Ellie's "girl's" church bag will be part 2