Easter Brown Bags

For the season of spring, it is never too much to prepare these dressed-up simple brown bags and gift them to family and friends. I always make simple sugar cookies and decorate them (...or not). Recipe for them here. Recipe for Spring Linzer Cookies: here.

Check my post Easter Table here for decoration inspiration.

Back to the brown bags:

This year I used pastel green and yellow colours, with a hint of purple.

Please, follow the images and your heart for decorating these bags. Use the craft you love the most to express yourself at best. I have used these cross-stitched little bunny designs, but yours could be different. The idea is to incorporate the card stock with fabric and ribbon - it transforms the bag completely. 

Materials needed:

Cardboard for the labels
Fabric designs of your choice
Fabric for the backing
Ribbons in matching colours
Simple brown bags
Clips

Pattern displayed for download:




Additional tools needed: hole puncher

Once the designs are ready, place them face down with the backing fabric. With erasable pen/pencil, transfer the egg patterns on the back and stitch around the curve, leaving an opening on one side (as shown in the image below).

Do not forget the notches: these guys are super curved and in order for the design to lay out flat once turned right side out, it needs to be helped by cutting notches all around the curve. Be careful to always cut 2 mm away from the seem.

Turn your designs right side out and finish the open seams with slip stitch.

Use the flag shaped pattern to cut the labels out of the card stock.
Punch two holes in the middle for the ribbons.

I have needle-weaved a loop on top of the egg-shaped labels for the ribbons. Attach the fabric and card labels together and tie the ribbons in a bow. Fill the bags with cookies and/or Easter buns/bread: recipe here. Clip the ready label on the brown bags. Make your friends happy :)

Happy Easter!

♥ Ivelina

Cross-stitched Tag for Christmas

Making a tag for a Christmas present is very exciting and sometimes even more appreciated, than the present itself. This season, the things we make with our hands are precious. While making presents, we put our heart into it, and that is what Christmas is about.

Make a tag for a nice biscuit box, or a bar of chocolate (who does not love chocolate ?! ... ). The tag will be an emblem, representing love, friendship and respect. 

you will need:

tag template
Christmas pattern for cross stitching
28 ct linen fabric
embroidery floss
batting
fabric of choice for the back of the tag

I used a pattern from the loved by me French magazine "Création Point de Croix:

1. Draw your template on a sheet of paper.
2. Cut a piece of fabric as big as the stitched pattern.
3. Cut the batting with the size of the tag template.
4. Secure the batting to the fabric with pins and stitch with a contrasting thread, so you will be able to quilt stitch easily.

5. My back fabric choice is with patterns and it is easy to make uniformed quilt stitches. If you chose plain fabric, you would need to draw some lines diagonally and follow them while stitching.

Make small stitches - it looks neat and gentle and the stitches do not scream for attention:

The black thread, used for securing the batting to the fabric is visible here. Now it would be the time to remove it.

6. Pin both pieces together, facing each other. 

7. Sew along the edges of the batting, leaving a unsewn part of one of the side seams for turning the tag inside out. 

8. Cut along the seam, leaving 5 mm seam allowance. Clip the two down corners at 45°.

9. Turn the tag inside out, pressing the seams with an iron.

10. Make the eyelet. I used a tool for cutting the fabric, but instead of putting the metal ring for the eyelet, I decided to sew it:

This is how my sewn eyelet looks like - I like it better than the metal one, because it is more naturally looking and matches nicely the cross stitching. 

Bas de Noël avec une étiquette de long

Bas de Noël is something my little one does at her French school for Christmas. Little hands sew with big effort - using a special heavy cross stitcher (for the non sharpened point), fighting with the extremely long, long  thread, sweating and chatting with the other kids, but determined to finish and make every stitch count, imprinting memories, excitement and love. These anxious sparkling eyes just urged me to help her make one Bas de Noël for her teacher and sew a tag-a-long for it.

For the label, I used felt and backstitched the to: - for: names. For the tag-a-long, I stitched the "Bon Noël" words over a checked cotton piece of fabric, lined with thin felt for avoiding a flat and boring look. "Joyeux  Noël" is a much more appropriate and popular felicitation, but I chose "Bon Noël" for matching my ratio - size of the tag : size of the lettres.

There is nothing better than a handmade present for Christmas. It is even better when the sock is filled with treats. 

We filled it with round cookies. The sock is so skinny, that we baked a small rounded honey cookies that I posted in my Folk Christmas post.

We made a cream bird and filled it lightly with high-volume fibre felt for relief appearance. 

Additional fabric cones filled with chocolate are a great complement to the sock.

Joyeux  Noël, tout le monde!