Christmas Projects

I have been busy working on Christmas stuff, presents I am sewing for my family, bags to wrap those presents in, and as you see above a tag to identify who the gift is for.

I belong to several Yahoo groups and on one of them there has been a lot of discussion about making fabric bags to wrap Christmas presents in. They are reusable, and over time cheaper then buying wrapping paper. I have a stash (just a small one) of Christmas fabrics and almost no Christmas wrapping paper left from past years, so I decided that I would make bags this year to wrap my gifts in. I can either leave them with my Chicago relatives for them to use next year, or I can bring them home and reuse them myself next year. They are so easy to  make that I have made around 9 or 10. They are just flat strips of fabric (I have been using fat quarters, or half yards) folded in half, sew along the bottom, sew up the side, leave a gap in the side sewing about 1 1/2 inches from the top which is about 3/4 inch long. Then fold down the top on the inside and stitch it down to make a casing for a ribbon or whatever you want to use to close the bags.  See photographs below for some of my bags and one "wrapped" gift.

The top image is the name tag I created for these wrapped gifts to indicate who they go to. I used Adobe Illustrator to design the tag, and stopped when I liked it. They are printed on Bristol board so are heavy and shouldn't tear off before Christmas morning. I used a small hole punch to create the hole that I can pass the ribbon tie through. Not very fancy but I think they look as nice as some of the sticky tags that can be purchased. They were sort of a pia to print, the printer doesn't really like the heavy Bristol board but I managed to get enough printed that I should be all set.

I have decided to join another Sketchbook Challenge for 2011. This is a blog created by artists on the Quiltart list who will post a monthly theme that artists who are following along will use to create pages in their Sketchbooks and then post to their blogs or to I think a Flicker account. Since I don't have a flicker account I will probably just post to this blog.  I should get a new sketchbook for this project, but will probably wait until after Christmas to do so. Anyway visitors to my blog should notice the new block identifying my blog as a participant in the Challenge.

I have also been attempting to make a Facebook page for Katwalk Designs, not sure I have succeed with that or who I should ask to "like" it. But it is a way for people to link to me on Facebook without becoming Friends and being subjected to all my game activities.  I will explore this a bit further next year.

Enough for today, per usual comments are always welcome I am always interested in hearing what my visitors have to say.