My kids have killed three tape measures in the past year and it’s getting old. Really, really old.
Oh well. Time to bundle up yet another pile of measuring mess and haul it out to the trash, right?
Wait! Don’t toss that!
Tape measure metal is a cinch to cut with regular scissors and is loaded with all the organizery-measury goodness that’s all over blog land right now.
I used mine to dress up the fronts of some temporary shelves I have in my bedroom-turned-impromptu-sewing-station.
See?
I didn’t want to mess with painting these shelves with the whole ‘they’re temporary’ thing. But some extra color helps a lot.
Here’s the finished product:
Oh, and did I mention how handy it is to be able to measure fabric and ribbon on the fly?
I just hold up my yardage for a quick and accurate measurement.
Love that.
Here’s a few tips for anyone wanting to dress up their own shelves:
1. Be careful! The metal cuts easily with scissors, but the edges are sharp. Go slow, wear gloves and you’ll be fine.
2. Remove the measuring tape from the container by either unclipping the yellow portion from the blue tab or cutting it away using regular scissors.
3. Use a strong adhesive like E-6000. Craft glue, hot glue and the likes won’t cut it. And don’t fight the natural curve in the metal. You’re not going to flatten it out so don’t try.
4. The easiest way to glue these is to remove the shelves from the the wall (if possible). I ran a generous bead of E-6000 down the board and used duct tape to keep the tape measure from shifting while it dried. Again, don’t try and flatten the metal—just keep it from moving.
4. For the first shelf, I cut a piece from the very end of the measuring tape and glued it to the left side.
The next morning I started at the beginning of the tape measure and glued it along the front and right side.
For the remaining shelves, I measured the sides and front of each one and cut a single piece of metal tape. I glued the fronts of the shelves first and allowed them to dry overnight.
Then I carefully bent the tape measure around the corner and glued it to the sides of the shelves. Again, duct tape kept everything in place while it dried.
I feel very honored to be asked because Thrive is one of my favorite blogs. I love seeing Nike continually rock what she’s got in such a creative and classy way. I feel a special kinship to her because I, too, get a thrill of satisfaction from making something awesome from nothing, and I, too, have my own dirty half dozen. I know how difficult it is to fit blogging into an already over-full family life, so she amazes me even more!
Gushing introductions aside–I want to tell you a sad story that you may be able to relate to.
Every Christmas, I start out gift wrapping with a happy heart and put all my love into each carefully tied bow and crisply folded corner. HOWever, about halfway through wrapping my family’s gifts, with other holiday demands starting to heat up, my evil inner martyr mother comes out. The wrapping gets uglier along with my mood, and I have a Scarlett O’Hara-like moment where I say, “I will never be stuck spending hours wrapping Christmas presents again.”
My husband’s solution to this problem (in addition to helping me wrap a few as long as I stop verbally abusing him long enough to pass him the scotch tape 🙂 ) is to suggest that we just stick the presents under the tree in the shopping bags and shipping boxes they came in. He reasons that the kids will still have something to undo, and we won’t have to do a thing. Problem solved.
Except, that it would look ugly.
Really,really, ugly.
And I am just shallow/proud/perfectionistic enough that I mind putting super ugly presents under the tree like I’ve given up all pretense of a beautiful
holiday.
Luckily, there is a third option beyond becoming a wrapping paper martyr, and giving up on life. My very talented mother-in-law often gives gifts in personalized fabric gift bags. Also, a dear friend of mine wraps all her family’s gifts in fabric gift bags that an environmentally-conscious neighbor gave her as a gift many years ago.
Hmmm. I think re-useable, pretty, fabric gift bags are a good thing. And now finally, after years of meaning to make them, I have done it.
And, I am willing to give you all the benefit of my experience and wisdom with lots of lazy shortcuts and tips (you’re welcome 🙂 ).
To make your very own bags, you will need:
•a fabric stash to pilfer (oh, come on–you know you have one, too)
•and/or other fabric, such as pillowcases you don’t need, pillow covers, old sweaters, etc.
•ribbons, cords, old (clean!) shoelaces, etc.
•a sewing machine with thread
•scissors
•pins
That’s it. Probably all stuff you have lying around.
Now, I am not one to re-invent the wheel. There are some great tutorials for making a drawstring bag here and here and probably lots of other places on the web as well. If you don’t already know how to make one, I suggest brushing up on the basics.
Then, using those tutorials (or your own awesome innate drawstring bag wisdom) as a basis, here are the shortcuts I’ve devised for making your bags more quickly and simply:
Lazy Shortcut #1: Use pinking shears so you don’t have to zig-zag. These aren’t going to be used every day, so you don’t need to finish them perfectly, but you still don’t want your hard work to fray into un-useability.
Lazy Shortcut #2: Instead of making the casing for the bag and then feeding the ribbon or cording through, pin it into the casing when you fold the casing over (see above–my pins are holding both my ribbon and casing in place). Then sew your casing seam, taking care to keep a safe distance from your cording or ribbon. Then all you have to do is take out your pins, and Voila! You are ready to go!
Lazy Shortcut #3: Unless you really want a drawstring bag that has handles on either side, you can just leave the casing open on only one side of your bag and then tie it in a bow. It saves time and ribbon.
Lazy Shortcut #4: Another option is to make a buttonhole towards the top of your bag before you fold your casing over. Feed the ends of your ribbon through the buttonhole, then pin the rest into your casing. Sew the casing seam and unpin everything. You can close it by pulling on the ends of the
ribbon and tying it into a bow, or put the ribbon ends through a toggle or large bead–then you can just cinch it up.
Lazy Shortcut #5: You don’t have to make a casing at all. Just make your bag with an open top (like a pillowcase) and tack some ribbon near the top. Then all you have to do is bring the ends around to the front and tie it in a bow. Just like this one below with the double-ribbon tie. Easy peasy.
If you don’t have a fabric stash (and if that is true, I pity you 🙂 ), I’ll bet you still have access to other free/cheap sources of fabric.
For example,I made a gift bag out of a thrift-store throw pillow cover I wasn’t using anymore.
I unzipped the zipper on the side and removed the pillow to add a gift …
… then I just used a zig-zag stitch to tack the ribbon on one side of the pillow cover, put the present in,
zipped up the side zipper and tied the bow.
So simple!
I made this one out of an old pillowcase. It was cute and soft, but it had shrunk, and just ended up
looking skimpy on the pillow.
However, with a cute black grosgrain ribbon tacked to the back and tied into a jaunty bow on the front, Santa couldn’t do any better :).
You probably have some unused pillowcases in your linen closet, but if not, most thrift stores in my area sell them for about $1. That’s less than a new throw-away gift bag.
Some other options I didn’t try yet, but that would work really well:
An old/shrunk crewneck sweater.Cut off the arms (which could probably be used to make small, thin gift bags, by the way), turn it inside out. Sew straight across the top from shoulder to shoulder, and up each side from the waistband to the seam you just created (closing up the arm holes). Trim to a 1/
2″ seam allowance on each seam and zig-zag to prevent fraying. Turn right-side out and add a ribbon. That would be so cute, especially if you used a holiday-themed sweater.
Made cut-offs last summer? Use the bottom part of the jeans/pants that you cut off! You end up with kind of a tube when you make cut-offs, so you could just turn this tube upside down, and sew a seam where the knee used to be. Turn right-side out and add a ribbon and you’re in business.
Really, the sky’s the limit in terms of places you can find fabric for this project.
Good luck, and may adorable fabric stash gift bags keep your evil martyr mother at bay this holiday season!
Thank you so much Erin! I’ve made my first bag for my family, too, and am sooooo excited at the thought of NOT being up at 1 am on Christmas morning swearing complaining about wrapping presents.
Erin is another amazing e-friend that I’ve been lucky to find in blogland. We have living in Utah and Washington in common besides chasing around six kids – it makes you close. 🙂
I love reading Erin’s blog because she’s awesome at pretty much everything:
Having several yards of brand new, adorable, FREE fabric was so much fun to play with, but reality has set back in and we’re in full Rock-What-Ya-Got mode again. And since I’ve been doing a lot of sewing, I was hoping to find some existing outfits to just tweak a bit for the holidays.
Guess what I had to work with?
Yup.
Hand-me-down EASTER dresses.
Welcome to Pastel City. Population: 2
But if the picked-over isles at Walmart can teach us anything, it’s that every color is a Christmas color.
And that meanswith a little work,every solid colored dress can pull double duty as a Christmas special.
What?!
Even those pastel numbers?
Especially those pastel numbers. See?
And all I had to work with was ric-rac and a bunch of old poinsettia blooms. But it was enough. Those of you with more stash stuff and Christmas decorations could really go nuts.
I started on Kid #3’s pink dress and twisted some red and white ric-rac together to make my own Candy Cane trim.
You can twist any colors together to make lots of fun looks. Make sure your iron it really well after you twist it together to help it lay flat.
And I went the total cheaters route and simply hot glued my candy cane ric-rac right along the bottom hem. If you wanted a temporary fix, just stitch in place with clear thread.
(And yes, you can totally wash clothing with hot glued trim in cold water on the delicate cycle with a cool dryer. Works fine.)
To dress up the collar I removed the bow and glued my trim over the existing pink stuff, then pinned on a single poinsettia using a few safety pins.
Five minutes later I had a completely different look.
Done and done.
Kid #6’s dress was even easier to dress up … as in I spent three minutes on hers instead of five.
The worn out bow came off with a quick snip …
… and the flower I pulled off the fake poinsettia plant got safety pinned in place.
Add some sparkle shoes, another bloom for the hair and an already-in-the-closet sweater and voila!
Baby Girl just decked the halls.
So take a look in your girls’ closet.
And pull out those boxed-up spring and summer clothes.
Go dig through your ornaments, ribbons and bows.
Bet you have the makings of a little Christmas outfit magic, too.
