GIVEAWAY--Day #5

This is Day Five of my amazing Seven Days of Giveaways!  Yesterday's winners are both doubly lucky, because Katie also grabbed a prize on day #2, and Wendie got one on day #1!!  The rest of you will have to type your comments FAST to beat these two!

Today I am offering another morsbag that I made as a sample for the Craft This Tote Round 2 on Craftster.  You will LOVE this bag, because it is so big and lightweight, you can use it for a lot of things besides shopping.  Just yesterday I used one to carry my packages to the post office for mailing!  In addition to the morsbag, the first person to leave a comment (and email me your mailing address) will win a zipper-flower kit from Laliberi, and a Michael Miller fabric fat quarter (thanks, Susan!)

Yesterday I gave away a monster pouch to both winners, and I still have one left!  This is a sunglasses/eyeglasses pouch, but I have a friend who uses one of these to carry her checkbook in her purse.  The second person to leave a comment (and email me your mailing address) will get this cute monster, plus three fat quarters of Michael Miller fabric.

Thanks for stopping by, and if you don't win today, you still have two more days to try again!

What Makes a Monster a Monster?

The Monster Pouch Swap is now open for sign-ups on Craftster--yay!--but it closes on Saturday morning, so hurry if you plan to sign up.

While writing the information about the swap, and sewing the two pouches who will serve as our "spokes-monsters", I had to ask myself, what exactly is it that makes a monster a monster?  Here's the first one I made:

I made it using the pattern for the eyeglasses case I showed you last week.  Thinking back to the Hungry Monsters we made last August, I added lots of teeth.  The eyes needed to be monstrous, so I made them different sizes.  It still needed something, so taking my cue from Susan's rendition of my mystery critters, I added some scraggly hair, by sewing on some short scraps of embroidery thread (that really cleaned up some of the mess around my sewing chair!)

But I wasn't completely happy with the eyeglasses-case-monster, so I went back to the first monster I ever made:  good ol' Zipper Face (below)!  The zipper is the perfect monster mouth, especially when you use a constrasting color for the zipper and the inside of the mouth.  The eyes are especially good on this one too, because they are both very different, and one eye has an orange spot around it, sewn on with random zig-zag lines of stitching.

Using Zipper Face for my guide, I made this new monster pouch, below.  Yes, that's better! The two things that bothered me about the eyeglass-case-monster were the teeth (just a little bit of overkill there) and the matchy-ness of the fabrics I used.

So here are the ingredients for a pleasing monster pouch:
1.  A mouth with a zipper or teeth (just not too many teeth).
2.  Eyes that don't match, plus some added detail, like a spot around one eye, or layered buttons for one eye.
3.  Mismatched fabrics (but not so many different colors that it looks like a kindergarten exploded!)--strong colors seem to work well, and a print that could be monster skin is especially awesome (of course, fake fur is the ultimate monster fabric!)
4.  An extra detail or two, such as wonky hair, a tongue, or arms and legs will go a long way in making your monster pouch really unique and special.

Strawberry Pouch

I make a lot of zippererd pouches, and I've decided I need to step up my game a little--you can find a basic fabric pouch at every major retail store, so mine should be something unique, something that you CAN'T find at a big store.  That's what hand-made is all about.

I just got these marvelous fabrics in the mail this week (a gift from my equally marvelous friend, Susan!)  I decided to use the cute strawberry print fabric for my pouch.

I found a red polka-dot fabric to add to the front for constrast, and I wanted to do something else, but what?  A button?  Something embroidered?  Taking my cue from the fabric itself, I settled on a felt strawberry on a square background, sort of like a badge or medallion (or maybe a postage stamp?)  I cut the green square using a ruler and my pinking shears; I cut out the strawberry and stem freehand.  Here it is before any sewing has taken place:

Here it is, hand-sewn onto the fabric that will be the front of the pouch.  Isn't it cute?!

This is a medium-sized pouch, measuring 6.5" x 5".  It's a perfect size for organizing the small things in your purse.

I also used the red polka-dot fabric for the lining.

I finished it off with a leaf charm tied with a red ribbon to the zipper.  (I wish I had a strawberry charm!)

It's so exciting when something comes out just the way you want it to!  No more plain pouches for me! 

The Post Office Loves Me

When I posted the tutorial for my scrappy patchwork technique, which included a scrap fabric giveaway, I expected to get a few requests for scraps from Craftster members, and that's just what happened the first couple of days.  Then yesterday, my Scrappy Snappy Pouches tutorial (which again included a scrap giveaway) appeared on CraftGossip.com--and now I'm almost afraid to read my e-mail because I've been flooded with requests for scraps!

I went to the post office again today, to send fabric-scrap-filled envelopes throughout the U.S. and Canada.  So far I've mailed 32 envelopes, so if you requested scraps before 10am EST today, your envelope is heading your way right now!  Here's my mail bag:

One of the envelopes in the bag actually contains a scrap of the chicken print fabric left over from making this bag (several years ago)!  Who will get it?

Ironically, after mailing away so many scraps, it actually seems that I have MORE scraps now than when I started!  It's as if every time I put one in an envelope, two more sneak into the pile!  Where are they coming from?  Take a look:

Sadly, this is how my living room looks right now, so if you haven't requested your scraps yet, don't worry, I've still got some!