First off, apologies to all the readers! For the last 2 weeks, we've been moving my son downstairs so that he & my mother wouldn't have to share a room any longer. Mom moved in with us in June 2008 and has been sharing Mike's room since then. Both have been great sports with it all, but the time had come where it was time for a change. I've been helping my son and helping my mom get some storage things as well as dusting and helping to organize my mom's space. I missed last week's column and have hit this week's, most probably past the wire... but I wanted to let you all know why I was missing!
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I thought I'd share a craft I've done in the past (both as a gift as well as for myself). I like book bags. There are inexpensive canvas bags easily obtained & ready for your creation. You will need some fabric and some Stitch Witchery® by Dritz®. Stitch Witchery® has paper on one side and then something like a fabric glue that you iron onto the wrong side of your fabric, then peel the paper and iron onto the bag. If you use a patterned material, be sure to look for the part of the pattern you want to show when you cut out whatever item, and don't forget to cut it out "backwards" so when you iron it on, it will be looking the way you want it.
If you or the kids are not artsy, you can get some stencils to use with the fusible web. I made a sweatshirt for myself using one cat stencil for 2 cats (using the stencil right side up and then again wrong side up), along with a decorative heart stencil. Then posed each cat looking at each other with the heart between them. On my website you can see what I did for a friend who likes dachshunds. For a friend's book bag, I found some picture/photos online (2 different dogs) that looked like they would fit well and then I printed them enlarged and used the copy as a basis for my stencil when cutting out the fabric. You can find my patchwork dachshunds book bag here, along with other artwork I've done. I added a strip of lace at the top of the bag to give it a nice finished look.
It's pretty fast and easy, and you can do some fun stuff, especially if the one who is getting the book bag has special interests, hobbies, or collects certain things that can be used on a book bag (or a sweat shirt, or...). A coffee or tea drinker could have tea cups, for example. You can also paint directly on the bags with acrylic paints, whether using stencils or just free hand. I hope you have fun with it! I certainly have over the years.
Donna Conner lives in Fort Worth, TX with her husband, Glenn, their son, Mike, Donna's mother, Charlotte, and their dog, Lucia. Donna and Glenn have been homeschooling their son since the beginning of his education. Mike completed his homeschooling in the fall of 2008. Donna is an artist and has always enjoyed writing. She wrote Homeschooling Only One in 2003, after discovering that there were many other families homeschooling only one child. Her website is devoted to those with only one student in their homeschool, with listings of online resources. You can find these free resources, including a message board for those who HOO, on her website at http://donnac.com and read her blog at: http://www.homeschoolblogger.com/DonnaC
copyright © 2009 Donna Conner ~~ All rights reserved. Content may not be reproduced in any form without written permission of author, except in the case of brief passages embodied in critical reviews and articles where the title and author are listed.
