(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!