Coloring Tote

I made a coloring tote for my 8 yr old niece for Christmas. I didn't have much fabric to chose from and had to use some my mother-in-law so graciously gave me to start my stash with, but I think it turned out ok. I started with the idea from A Girl and A Glue Gun. You can find her AWESOME coloring book and tutorial here. There were no measurements in her tutorial so I just kinda guessed and measured the same way she did. Here's how mine turned out...(warning: crappy iphone pics, esp the first one..bad bad lighting...i apologize now!)

 horrible lighting! it's actually two tones of pink. I wanted to put her initial on the front, but i totally screwed that up and got in over my head on that.

 one item of each. lol i was too lazy to fill it up for a photo.

 this side didn't take so much to fill up hehe

and the whole inside. not everything's straight, but the 8 year old won't notice (hopefully)

My niece carries a tote bag to church with her full of crayons and coloring books, so I thought this would work out perfect for her. My 7 year old DD has ooh'd and aah'd over it so I guess I'll be making her one. As anyone knows who has more than 1 child (esp DDs) if you make one something you have to make the others one as well. So I should have this down to perfection by the time I get the 4th one done (my niece and then my 3 DDs). 

Seems like everyone's blog I have been reading lately is posting about amazing homemade gifts, decorations, and even cookies. While I don't have any cookies to post or anything spectacular and profound to post or say I'll be leaving it at this. I'll be out of state without internet service starting today until next Tuesday or Wednesday. When I get back I plan to start my 2011 crafting resolution list. I see so many people posting these and feel inspired to do the same. 

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! I wish all of you a safe and wonderful time!

Leaning tree and teacher's gifts

I have been on a crafting spree the last couple of weeks! I am working on a tissue paper tree and then made Christmas presents for 2 of my daughter's teachers.

I first saw the tree at Spunky Junky and fell INLOVE with it! While I have never done anything like this before I followed their awesome tutorial, which you can find here. I didn't have a cone form so I used a large poster board and rolled it up into a cone, hot glued it, and then cut the bottom even (hence mine ended up leaning, but I think it gives it character).

I ran out of tissue paper so I'm probably going to trim it down as you can see at the top. Also, the package of tissue paper I had bought actually changed in color on me and I didn't want to get back out to buy more so my bottom is a greener blue while the top is blue. My oldest daughter says it's a princess hat. LOL

I made pocket hand warmers with hand embroidered designs on them. I then put them in felt gift bags I made.  Both teachers got a set of two.

I'm working on one more project for my niece for Christmas. I'll post pictures When I'm finished.

Thanks for looking!! Merry Christmas!