Giveaway: - July 2011 - Part 1 Tea Bag Wallet and $10

This giveaway has ended.  Thanks to all that has entered!

Alright, so I think I mentioned back in March that I'd have another giveaway during the month of July.  Well, surprisingly so, July has come in a flash!  I've been thinking about what I want to give you guys for awhile now... finally decided on doing two small giveaways this month.  The first will go from July 2nd, (today) until July 31st.  The second will go from July 15th until August 15th.  I'll also be implementing the new rules for Rad Linc Craft giveaways. So, the way it's going to work is, anyone that entered in on the last giveaway (last March), will be automatically entered into this giveaway. If you enter this giveaway again, you'll have two entries.  Then if you enter the second July giveaway, you'll have two entries on that one as well.  Okie dokie? Email me if you have questions: (ftcanon AT gmail DOT com)

Alright, so the prize for today's giveaway...

A tea bag wallet.  :-)  You'll get the one pictured below.  See the tutorial here.  This wallet is slightly different, in that I use an elastic band that stretches around the entire wallet instead of a ribbon and button.  I find it easier to use this way.

[Updated prize:]
And lastly... I'm including a $10 giftcard to Joann's.  :)

The giveaway ends July 31, 2011 at 11:59am and the winner will be notified soon after.

To enter, just make a comment on this page.  Please also leave some way for me to contact you (i.e. email address, twitter name).  If not, make sure you come back to the site to see if you've won.  Winners will have a month to claim the prize before a new winner is chosen.

Good Luck!!!

P.S. I haven't decided on what the next giveaway will be so stay tuned.

Tea Bag Wallet

FYI: Rad Linc Crafts is currently having a giveaway and the prize is a Tea Bag Wallet and a $10 giftcard to Joann's.  See here!!! Giveaway ends July 31, 2011.  Comment the Giveaway Post to Enter.

I have a friend that takes tea bags with her everywhere. When we go out to eat, she just orders hot water. I thought of her immediately when I saw a different version of this tea bag wallet come up in my RSS reader. After some searching I found this pattern.

Anyway, here's the one I made, and how I did it.

Materials:
5.5" x 6.5" fabric (2)
4.75" x 6.5" fabric (2)
3" - 4" piece of ribbon
1 button

How to:

1. Fold the 2 smaller fabrics lengthwise. Ironing these down make it easier to work with. These will be the pockets.

2. Sew the folded edge of the 2 fabrics.

3. Sew the bottom edge of 1 of the pockets onto one of the bigger fabric rectangles. This will be the top pocket so what I did was sorta position the tea bag to where I wanted it. I eventually decided to line the bottom edge about 1.25" away from the bottom edge of the bigger fabric. Pinning this down would have probably been a good idea, but I didn't find it too necessary... so it's up to you.

4. Sew in the bottom pocket to the same fabric rectangle that you sewn the other pocket in. You'll want to line up the bottom of that rectangle to the bottom of your pocket.



5. Mark a center line of the rectangle (fabric pencils work well here). Sew a line straight down the middle like the picture.

6. Sew in the ribbon with the fold facing the pockets like shown.

7. Put the fabric with the pockets and the last piece of fabric together right sides facing each other. Sew almost all the way around. Leave a small hole in one of the sides so that the fabric can be invereted to the right side out.

8. Oops, I forgot to put the interfacing... well, I went ahead and put it on here... I guess it doesn't really matter much, so iron it on.



9. Cut the corners.

10. Invert the fabric thru the little hole you left.

11. Iron the edges down.

12. Sew around the whole thing. Remember to fold in the open hole.



13. Almost done. You just need to attach a button now. Fold it in half, and see where the button should be. I marked the spot with a pen. Sew in the button.



That's it. Not too hard, right? I'll be ordering hot water the next time I go to a restaurant. :-D

Easy Gift Card Holders

As Christmas gifts, since we usually end up having to travel in a car with our dogs and our luggage and several gifts, it has become easier to resort to giving the impersonal gift cards. Oh well. So, as an effort to make it a bit more personal, I decided to make my own gift card holder. :-) Anyway, I found this site that showed how to make Easy Peasy Snap Wallets and basically used the same technique with Christmas fabric and called them giftcard holders.


Here's how I did it:
Materials:

• fabric (in this case Christmas... but can easily be for a birthday or any other occasion)

• interfacing (I don't know if this is really necessary, but it does make it slightly thicker to have)

• easy no sew snaps (trust me, these are the way to go if you are a beginner to sewing – super easy to use.)

*Please note that I started making one wallet with one fabric then decided to use another fabric afterwards because the details showed better on it. Sorry if that makes it confusing.

Instructions:

1. Cut your fabric. You need two rectangles that are about 5 x 8.5 (I cut out a piece of paper to that shape as a guide.... and yes, TigerDirect.com is pretty awesome).


2. Cut your interfacing. You just need one rectangle of this... about 4 x 7.5, basically enough to cover the center area of one of the rectangle so it doesn't hit the sewing line.

3. Iron the interfacing on one of the rectangle fabrics (onto the wrong side of the fabric). You'll want to center the interfacing onto one of the rectangles and make sure that the smooth side is on top and the bumpy side is on the bottom. Then go ahead and iron it on, it should take a few seconds on each area. The interfacing will basically attach itself to the fabric.

4. Sew together the two rectangles with the right sides together and the wrong sides away from each other. You'll sew almost all the way around leaving a small opening in the middle of one of the small sides. See the picture for the sewing line. The small opening is on the right side.



5.Cut the corners off. This gives you cleaner corners when you invert the fabric.


6. Invert the fabric by pulling the inside out and the outside in.

7. Use a pen to form the corners from the inside.


8. Optional: Here I try to iron down the long edges flat on the sewing line. This makes a cleaner fold when you fold down on the sewing line. (I actually did this after step 10 then did step 9 again, but it probably would have made more sense to do it on before step 9.

9. Iron the edges of the rectangle. Particularly, fold and iron in the opening so that the edge is straight


10. Sew the edge with an opening from long side to long side.

11. Fold up the side with the sewn edge to form the pocket area.

12. Sew along both side edges, do a small reverse sew right where the folded up edge meets with the rest of the fabric.

13. You're done at this point. The only thing left to do is to add on the snaps. The craft blog (craftster.org) where I found the original easy peasy wallets also do a great job of explaining how to add on these snaps to the wallet. I wanted to do the instructions for these as well but, my pictures didn't come out... so just follow the instructions on the craftster site. Sorry!

14. Put the gift cards in, attach a gift tag inside, and give the gift to someone special.

I hope that gives an idea for this Christmas (tho, it might be a little late, sorry again), or maybe for other gifts throughout the year.... or maybe for a wallet or for a business card holder, or whatever. I've recently made a camo one to store some gift cards that I've recently received.
Also, as this will probably be the last post that I'll put out before Christmas, I'd like to wish you all a very Merry Christmas!