Birthday Gift Bags

There are 15 pupils in Papaya's class including her. That means 15 5th birthdays this school year and 14 gift bags I need to make for the presents! Here are two of them for a party tomorrow. I love the 50's style little children fabric! The flowers that are holding on the gift tags are actually little brooches so kind of part of the present themselves.



Inside the bags are a book and card for each girl. I hope they like them :)

Shortie Pyjamas

Shortie Pyjamas in dinosaur print for my non-god-godson and robot print for his big brother.



I made them with drawstring waists, as they're skinny boys, and popper fastening for easy dressing. Of course they each come in matching bags ;)

More Xmas wrapping bags.

These ones are for my cousins. I enjoyed matching the colours of the bags and their ribbons to the contents. The tags are some of our saltdough creations with the message written on using a Sharpie.



The pink bag had a couple of homemade goodies inside too, a box and an unintentionally spider-looking brooch.

Funky flower brooches

I knew as soon as I saw this tutorial to make felt flower brooches that I had to give it a try. In the end I made three brooches to give as presents this Xmas but I forgot to take a photograph of one of them before I gave it away! The brooch above was for my mother, and ended up larger than I would have liked but I reckon it would look great on a coat or a hat.


This green and turquoise brooch was for my sister-in-law. After I had sewn around the back of the brooches and added the pin, I cut a circle of felt and and glue-gunned it in place to seal the whole thing and give a better finish.


All three brooches were rather large and un-wieldy so I need to put some practise in to make some more delicate ones!

Jewellery Boxes

Another part of my family's presents, I made these Jewellery boxes for my mother and my sister-in-law. The boxes were made by decorating some papier mache blanks I found in my local Hobbycraft. The inner circle in the lids was removable so I was able to decorate it separately from the rest gluing on a fabric or paper to suit each person. I glued the pattern on both sides so the inside of the box lid was decorated too. the rest of the box I painted using two coats of emulsion and then sprayed with varnish to seal it.



The green box is for my sister-in-law. I used the same fabric I had used to make her a badge and picked out the green colour for the rest of the box.



The red box is for my mother. I chose the patterned paper to coordinate with a book I had bought her. The red was so that it would match her bedroom. I found some glittery self-adhesive border supposed to be used for scrapbooking in Hobbycraft too so used that to add a pretty detail.

Little puffy badges

I wasn't sure what else to call these. This one above was the first thing that I couldn't show you before as it was inside my sister-in-law's Xmas present. The other two are for my children on their coats. You may recognise the fabric for Povey's one from the top I made him a while back.


I made the badges by choosing an image from fabric and cutting it out very roughly. I cut a piece of felt the same size and then sewed the two together using a zigzag stitch. I sewed round about halfway and pushed in some stuffing before completing around the shape. I then zigzagged around three or four more times and cut it out close to the stitching. A safety pin sewn to the back turned it into a badge.

Xmas bags

Here are my family's presents all ready for them in fabric gift bags rather than wrapping paper. I originally planned to make these bags for everyone but only got the free time after Xmas so made them for my parents and brother and sister-in-law who we're not exchanging presents with until tomorrow.



You'll have to wait to see what I made for inside these ones, just in case my family spots my blog before we see them ;)



I found the tutorial to make the gift bags here. They are so easy to make and look and feel lovely. My aim is to do this for all presents throughout the year from now on. I may not manage it for every present due to lack of time but I'm going to try my best. I just think they're so much nicer than paper as they're like part of the present themselves. Of course they're more environmentally friendly too as they're reusable!