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Tag Archives: swap-bot

Swap: Art Journal (1)

I am starting on a new swap project.  This time, it’s an art journal.  I have never created one before but have been rather curious about it.  I’m pretty bad at completing projects for myself so when this swap came about regarding art journal for novices, I thought it would be a good time to try.  I’ll be making the journal myself, as I’ve developed an interest in coptic binding, and figured this would be a good time to actually try it.  Huzzah, two birds and one stone!  So, I’ll periodically post my progress on how things are going.  At least for actually making the journal.  Whether or not I decide to post the content of the journal…I haven’t decided.

Anyway, here are some photos of the covers and signatures in various stages of preparation.

Aren’t the covers cool?  I found some very interesting paper in my scrapbook paper collection.  What you see are the outside faces of the cover.  They’re drying right now.  I had Mod Podged the paper over some perfectly sized cardboard the USPS so kindly sent to me with my stamp order.  We’ll see how well that works.  By the way, did I mention this is the first time I’m trying out Mod Podge?  I had also been interested in trying this out and figured this would be a good time.  Three birds with one stone?  Wow…I’m so efficient.  The inside are tourist maps of Dallas and Fort Worth.  I am from neither Dallas nor Fort Worth, but is the last place I visited, so it was on top of my tourist map collection to be recycled into something more interesting.  Not that I don’t find maps interesting.  But I don’t have any use for tourist maps after I’ve come back from touristing that area.

And you also see what will become the signatures of the journal.  Are they not interesting as well?  I won’t be doing stuff on the patterned side, just the blank inside portion, in case you’re wondering.  Most of the patterns chosen for the signatures were chosen really because…I didn’t think I’d use them otherwise.  Heh.  But really, flowers?  Sparkly flowers??  And Halloweeny stuff?  Blech.  But! I did also include some patterns I really like, like those coffee beans you see there and those gummy bears.  Oh, and that popcorn in the back.

Oh…and don’t mind the Ottlite.  It’s my portable craft light and doubles as a bookend, apparently.

Swap: Tea Wallet

A very loud tea wallet.

Ta da!  It’s time for a craft!  I made this tea wallet a few weeks ago for a swap on Swap-bot, in which you make a tea wallet, similar to what you see above, and send your partner some tea along with it.  Well, I thought this would be an excellent time to use all this Powerpuff Girls cloth that someone had given to me while I was in college…because they felt that I could find some use for it?  I didn’t even sew back then.  I don’t know why they thought I would be a good candidate for this cloth.  I also don’t like pink.  All around strange.  But anyway, I’ve had it in my pile of scrap cloth this whole time and I’ve finally found away to get rid of some of it!  Huzzah!

Also, I thought a tea wallet is an interesting idea and useful if you’re a big tea drinker (I am probably a moderate tea drinker).  Now you can cart your favorite teas around without them getting all squished in your bag and whatnot.

To make the tea wallet, I modified what I found in this tutorial by Red Linc Crafts for less sewing and less material.

Materials:

PPG!

  • 11″ x 6.5″ piece of cloth (this will be the base)
  • 4.5″ x 6.5″ piece of cloth (this will be the pocket)
  • 3″ of ribbon or cord (I used Chinese knotting string because I have an overabundance of it)
  • a largish button
  • the zipper foot to your sewing machine (optional)

Procedure:

  1. Fold the 4.5″ x 6.5″ piece of cloth in half endwise with the right sides facing together and sew along the bottom edge.  I allowed for 1/4″ seam.  Flip the tube inside out and iron it flat.
  2. Place the tube on your base cloth about 1.5″ from the top edge with the right sides facing together.  Pin and sew across the bottom edge of the pocket.  I allowed for about a 1/4″ seam again.

  3. Cut about 3″ of your ribbon (or whatever) and pin a loop facing inward on the right side of the base cloth, about midway on the pocket. I forgot to get a picture of this, but you can see where I put the loop in the finished product.
  4. Fold the base cloth in half lengthwise with the right sides facing together and pin.  Sew around the edges, but make sure to leave the last 2″ open so you can flip it inside out.  I allowed for a 1/8″ seam this time.  This cloth doesn’t really fray.  If you’re using cloth with a loose weave and will fray, you may still want to use a 1/4″ seam.  There should still be plenty of room for the teabags with the larger seam allowance.

    You can see the stub of where my string is pinned in this picture.

  5. Flip and iron.  If you used a larger seam allowance, you may want to snip the top corners of the wallet so that you don’t get a bulge there from the excess cloth.  When ironing, iron the open edges inside as if they were sewn in.  It’ll be taken care of with the bottom pocket.
  6. Fold about 2″ of the bottom edge up, pin, and sew down the edges.  I didn’t use the zipper foot here and I kind of regret that.  With a zipper foot, you can get much closer to the edge of the wallet and the seams would have looked neater.  I used the zipper foot previously here.   If you’re hand sewing, I guess it doesn’t really matter.  However, when you’re sewing, make sure those open edges are tucked in and are getting sewn down.
  7. Fold the wallet in half and iron a good crease into the center to use as a guide to sew the center line.  Now you have four pockets!  And you didn’t have to bother drawing a center line and making sure it was covered by the thread.  Huzzah!  You can see in the picture above where that crease is.
  8. Fold the wallet in half again, place the button and sew it in.  I hand sewed the button in place.  It made a lot more sense to do it that way.
  9. Stuff with tea!

Next time, I think I’ll try a version with Velcro.  Because I have a lot of that too.  Oh, and the one my swap partner sent me was made with this very interesting cloth with galaxies all over it.  It was quite nice.  And she sent me the most fragrant jasmine green tea.