Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Halloween. Show all posts

10.24.2011

Halloween Bag Mini-Tutorial

So... I was planning on making another trick-or-treating bag so I could show you all how I made them. Turns out, though--I don't feel like making yet another bag. I did have Cory take pictures along the way while I was making a Frankenstein bag for a friend, but I actually made it exactly the same way Jill did here. Which is different from how I made the original bags, so I'm going to just show you the basics of how I made them. They're very, very simple bags, and are actually quite similar to the messenger bags I made a few months ago, so if you have any questions about the actual construction of the bag, you can just look there. Or leave comments or email me or whatever. I'm flexible like that. Just let me know.

And now, a mini-tutorial of sorts.

So this is what we're going for:

A cute little ghosty bag. Yay!

To start, you're going to cut out your pieces. You'll need two ghost shaped pieces, and enough strips of white to go all the way around the edges, and to make a strap the length you want it to come out. Then you'll also need your face pieces--eyes and a mouth for each side on this guy. If you plan to reverse-applique them, like I did, you'll need to make each piece a little bigger than you want it to appear when complete.

Once you have all your pieces cut out, you'll start by sewing the face pieces onto the back side of your ghost faces. When you're finished they should look something like this (keep in mind this is the backside of the ghost):


After the face is all sewn on, it's time to start assembling the bag. Take your strips of white fabric, and cut them to the lengths of the sides of the ghost--one to match the bottom edge, and one for each side, ending up high enough that there's a good-size opening to the bag. Then, like the backpack tutorial, sew them together into one long strip (don't sew the handles on yet though), and then sew them onto the bag. As fleece is very stretchy and shifty, I would highly recommend pinning a LOT, and start with the bottom, as it is the most crucial part to match up--the sides can be trimmed down if they stretch, but the bottom needs to match up fairly well too look nice. Ask me how I know. :) When it's sewed on, it should look something like this:

Next you're going to attach the strap--I'd recommend doubling up the fleece, and topstitching down each side (not shown on this bag) to give it more strength--the fleece, like I said, is just too stretchy--if you get a couple pounds of candy in there, it's going to drag it down. Strength is good with kids. :)

Turn the bag right side out, and cut out the white over your face features. Just pinch the two layers apart, then cut very carefully into it, and trim the excess away, revealing the black underneath. Feel free to play around with how you trim them out--for this side, you can see that I cut basically up to the stitch line.


On this side, however... oh wait, you can't see it. Dang cat. Does anyone else's cat seem to like hanging out in the most inconvenient area? Haha.

No seriously. I couldn't leave this photo out though, haha. The ghost is terrified of the cat! Ahhh!

Ok, enough with my lousy humor (though I am very funny. Seriously, guys. I am). On this side, I didn't trim the eyes all the way out--I trimmed out my initial cut to make the hole, and realized that I was in love with the scared ghost look.


So I left it.

And there you have it. One cute little ghost bag. Yay! If you're doing the pumpkin, you don't have to worry about the bottom of the bag, so it's even easier--just sew one long strip all the way around, stopping where you want to the top of the bag to be. The only tricky thing is making sure the two faces of the pumpkins stay matched up--so don't stretch it at all as you go. And then add the handle in green. Keep 'em lined up. And then, enjoy watching your kids fill those new bags with goodies.... that hey, you can sneak later, right? :)

10.05.2011

Trick-Or-Treat Bags

So I was recently commissioned to make some trick-or-treat bags for our upcoming Super Saturday (where the women in our church get together on a saturday to create all kinds of fun craftiness). These are not fantastic, but they're what I came up with:


You can expect a tutorial soon, as I'll be making instruction pages for the women who will be taking the supplies home to make them there. A very few details about the bags--they're made of fleece (which allows for unfinished edges without unravelling)(I'm still debating the necessity of lining them with something slightly less stretchy, but at least fleece will stretch, and then return back to regular shape, unlike felt), and the little details I sewed on for faces are all reverse-appliqued. Way easier than it sounds.

Anyone wanna make some trick-or-treat bags? When I was a kid, we just used pillowcases... everything's so fancy these days! :)

9.22.2010

Ariel in the Pink Dress

So... I was seriously planning on buying costumes for my girls for Halloween this year. Don't get me wrong, I love to sew. I'm just not quite good enough at clothing yet.

Breanne, on the other hand, had different ideas. When I asked her a few weeks ago what she wanted to be for Halloween, she very specifically requested to be Ariel, in her pink dress (she wears it to dinner, when she thinks the fork is a dinglehopper, in case you're trying to remember it). Her response has not varied in the slightest every time I've asked her since then. So, I looked around a bit for the costume, but it's difficult to find such a specific costume for a reasonable amount of money (read--I can't find it anywhere but on Etsy, cheapest I've seen is $240...what!?!). And so... I am now making costumes. Yes, costumes with an "s," because Janey now also wants to be Ariel in the pink dress. Only sometimes Janey's Ariel dress involves purple, too... we'll see what she ends up with. :) In the meantime, I've pretty much finished Breanne's dress--I may add some more trim (it's actually supposed to have some white around the collar and waist, as well as a lace-ish bottom), but if it doesn't get done, it will work as is. I tried to get a decent picture, but someone couldn't stop twirling around the living room in it, so this is what I got:





It's not perfect (obviously), but I wanted to make it big, so she can play in it for a while. Also, the fabric, while slightly stretchy, is not overly so, and I wanted her to be able to get in and out of it with ease. I can't decide if I should figure out something for the shoulder part to make it poofier, or if I should just leave it alone... The important part is that she loves it, which she does. Now I just need to get working on Janey's. :)

P.S. Not sure if you noticed my KCWC button on the side--this week is the Kid's Clothing Week Challenge, and this has been my project for days 1-3. I want to sew some actual clothes for the rest of the week... but we'll see. I feel like I need to get Janey's costume done, too, so she doesn't feel left out. :/