Dribs and drabs

My sister-in-law likes having matching mother-daughter stuff.  Not sure that she's quite taken it to PJs/loungewear, but hey!  Why not?  :)  I made her a pair of Tigger PJ pants last Christmas (she hasn't gotten them yet - shhhh) when I accidentally cut the wrong size for another friend.  Now I made a matching pair for my niece!  These are from the Kwik Sew Sewing for Toddlers book.

A friend commissioned some special flannel pillowcases for some friends, and I was happy to oblige!  There are two of these, and I hope that the recipients love them as much as she hopes.

And more key fobs!  I think there will be a few more to come - don't think I have any teacher ones left - but these are for a few coworkers and friends.  The short ones are for my boys for stocking gifts - they like putting them on their backpacks as zipper pulls.

Still more key fobs - and a new use!

So I had made my friend some "Proud to Be a Nurse" key fobs, and she wanted more to distribute among her coworkers for Nurses' Day (May 6th, in case you aren't aware).  She chose the webbing colors from the ones I had available.  The Candy Crush key fob is for my aunt's birthday in the fall - yes, I too am shocked that I'm this far ahead of the game on that one! And the Lego key fob is for my son....

....to make it harder for him to lose his jump drive!  This particular jump drive is to be used for his programs for the Lego robotics club, so the Lego ribbon is perfect.  I let him pick the webbing color, too, and I am hoping this makes it easy to hang onto his jump drive, or at least much easier to find when he invariably misplaces it.  (These jump drives are TINY!)

I think this is a great way to help keep track of jump drives, and I'm thinking that I'll be making some key fobs for my own jump drives!  Time to make those suckers harder to lose!

More key fobs!

I recently made a bunch of key fobs and thought I'd share them.  These are so quick and easy!  The first set went to my high school friend who is a nurse.  I told her to pick her favorite and then see if anyone at work was interested in buying the others.  (Yes, I'm selling them - if someone is willing to help fund my new ribbon obsession, I'm totally willing to let them!  $6 each plus shipping if anyone's interested)  I think my favorite is probably the red one, but the blue goes almost perfectly with the blue in the stethoscopes, and the black looks pretty classy.  I'm thinking that in the future, I'll make sure that they all line up with the phrase complete on each side. 

These two are random gifts.  I know someone who loves Legos and was in need of a pick-me-up - I hope that she liked it!  That would potentially be a nice fundraiser for a Lego robotics team, too....And the eyes one is going to a friend who works in an ophthalmology office.  Maybe her coworkers would like some?  We'll see....

And these were commissioned by coworkers at the animal shelter I occasionally do work for.  One of the techs saw the key fobs I made for the other doctors, and she asked where I had gotten them.  When I said that I'd made them, she asked if I would sell any.  I thought about it and said sure, and she collected orders.  My favorite is probably still the turquoise, but I'm also partial to the purple and the green.  I also really like this ribbon on black, but no one ordered it this time.

I hope that everyone likes their new key fobs!  I'm currently semi-obsessed with making them, but I have to wait until my hardware order arrives before I can make any more.  These are great gifts - relatively inexpensive, but super cute and very useful.  I'll definitely continue to make them as gifts, especially when I need multiples.

Key fobs

So last year, I made a bunch of key fobs as gifts for teachers and friends.  It was the first time I'd ever done that, and they seemed to go over pretty well.  So I figured that I'd make more this year, especially since now I have a fair number of coworkers.

I made more than what is pictured, but these are all the unique combinations of print/color.  This time, all the supplies were purchased through a single online coop, run through FaceBook.  All key fobs are made with poly webbing and ribbon.  I still like how the fabric ones looked last year, but I think that these are easier and quicker but look just as nice.

I purchased 15 yards of the pawprint ribbon (middle to upper right), so that the roll could be ordered.  (The coop requires a certain number of yards to be ordered/paid for, or that print will be dropped.)   I've only used approximately 5 yards so far, so there's plenty remaining for future years.  I hope everyone likes these!

Easy gifts (like for teachers!)

Apparently I only blogged about these in passing this past Christmas, but with the end of school approaching, it might be a good idea to revisit them.  I made a bunch of key fobs as teacher gifts this year.  Well, and for friends and family, too, but the main impetus was for teacher gifts.  Most of the online tutorials I saw were for ribbon and webbing, but I used Sew4Home's tutorial, as I wanted to use just fabric.  The teacher key fobs were all made from fabric specifically bought for this purpose, and then the other key fobs used leftover fabric from other projects.  I really liked how finished these look with the piping.  They were easy to do, fairly cheap, and fairly quick.  And now the recipients won't have an easy time losing their keys!

Hanging towels have been a mainstay for me for the last couple of years.  I haven't blogged about them much, but believe me, I have made a crap-ton of them!  Just before Christmas, I stitched up seventy-plus towels - yikes!  But what can I say?  They're easy, fairly quick, not terribly expensive, easily personalized, and so totally useful!  In other words, the perfect gift!  Two Christmases ago, I gave all the teachers two hanging towels in their Christmas gifts.  This past year, I gave them to the new teachers on our list.  And about a month ago, the assistant principal at the school caught me (at parent-teacher conferences, amusingly enough!) to ask if I'd be willing to make her some more.  It seems that she highly values her hanging towels and wanted some more for her house. Of course, I agreed.  So here are the latest hanging towels to come out of my sewing room.  I love making them assembly-line style - in a couple of days (well, ONE day if you don't waste a lot of time!), you can get through a ton of towels and then have a bunch around for future gifting needs.  Hmmm....maybe I should double-check my current gifting stash....

Box Bags!

Yep, still more Christmas gifts to catch up on.  I made my first box bags over a year ago (also for gifts!) from Stacy Schluyer's tutorial.  And in rereading that post, I see that I had mentioned making some the next Christmas for some teenage sisters I know - I had totally forgotten about that idea, and yet that's exactly what I did!  One of my friends has three teenage daughters who are very close in age, and I usually make/give them similar things, especially since I don't know them really well these days.  But I do ask their mom questions and pay attention, so I was able to customize these to their favorite colors and interests.  I made two box bags for each one - reversing the lining/outer fabrics.  I also made matching key fobs.  And I heard later that they were a huge hit. :)

I also made box bags for the older sister.  Hers used a brown linen blend as the outer fabric, leftover from the stockings I made for our family for Christmas 2011.  This one is lined with leftovers of a cat/bookshelf print I used to line an Amy Butler Swing Bag I made for her six years ago.

And this one is lined with a neat travel print - leaning tower of Pisa, Eiffel Tower, things like that.  It reminds me of how her bathroom is decorated.  Her key fob was a Tinkerbell ribbon, leftover from the trim on a pillowcase I made for her three years ago.  She loves Tinkerbell. :)

I have to say that I really like these box bags as gifts.  I need to remember to make more next Christmas!  They're easy to make, easy to customize to the recipient's interests, economical (especially if you can get a good deal on zippers - I buy mine from Cleaner's Supply), and so very useful.