Tea Bag Travel Cases Tutorial

My Mum inspired me to make these. She loves drinking green tea or fruit tea's. 

I keep a box of fruit tea in my cupboard for her when she pops over. 

But it got me thinking what if she could have a case that could hold her favourite tea bags and small enough to slip into her hand bag. Then my Mum could have her favourite tea were ever she was. 

So here they are

They are so easy to make and you don't need a lot of sewing skills either.

All you need is :- Scrap fabric

Button

Hair Elastic

Card

Pen

Scissors

Sewing Machine

1. Draw on some card 2 rectangles one measuring 17 cm x 11 cm and another 17 cm x 6 cm. After cutting out the card rectangles draw around them onto the wrong side of the fabric you have chosen and cut them out. You will need 2 big rectangles and 2 small rectangles. 
2. Sew a seem of 1 cm along the top of the small rectangles. These are going to be your pockets. Then line the first pocket onto one of the large rectangles. This rectangle should be 2 cm up from the bottom of the large rectangle. Pin and then sew along the bottom edge of the first pocket.
3. Pin the second pocket to the same large rectangle, this should be lined up with the bottom of the large rectangle. Sew along the edge as close as you can.
4. Now take the second large rectangle and sew your button a few cm in from one of the short edges and sew the hair elastic to the other short edge. (You need to sew the hair elastic as close to the edge as possible. This is only to hold the hair elastic in place while you sew everything together.
5. Lay both large rectangles together with right sides facing each other. (Make sure the pockets will ended up the right way around) Pin and sew all the way around leaving a small gap so you can turn your case inside out. (There is a 1 cm seem allowance to this pattern.
6. Turn your case inside out and iron your case. Fold in the edges of the gap and iron over the top the create a crease. Now sew all around your case as close to the edge as you can. Then fold you case in half and pin in the middle line as a maker. Sew down he middle to create 4 pockets.

Your tea bag travel case should look like this.

Now fill with your lovely tea and enjoy having your favourite tea were ever you are.

www.emusupcycledgifts.com 

Playing With Old Shirts

During the summer holidays I did a lot of backing with the children. We are now cupcake queens, but during this time I found that not only don't my children own a apron but I also don't have a apron.

This revaluation got my creative juices running and after a lot of sketches and playing around I thought may be I could use a old shirt!

So during one of my visits to a charity shop I spotted this man's shirt for the bargain price of 50p. Which began my adventure at creating shirt apron.

After lots of experimenting with different designs and process this is the end result.     

The original shirt I bought for 50p and first design.

Second shirt I bought for £1 and second design.

Out of the two designs I prefer the second one and now I am the proud owner of a shirt apron.

xx

Experimenting With Different Textures

On my desk this week is a great book called Creative Embellishing By Teresa Searle. 

I loved this book as soon as I picked it! To be honest the front cover sold me striate away with it's bright colours and interesting textures. 

Teresa Searle has introduced to me to embellisher machines and although I do not have one yet, I have added it to my Christmas wish list. (Which seams to be getting longer by the day)

Basically its a sewing machine with lots of needles that you never need to thread. The needles are like barbed  wire, so each time they puncture a collection on fabrics and mixes the fibres up, similar to what happens when you felt. Creating a whole new piece of fabric all bound together like magic.

You can use different types of fabric to create all sorts of different effects from lace, cotton, silk, synthetic and wool. Your choice is endless!

This book is jam packet with different projects from making fabric from fibres, knitting yarns, scarf's, corsages, cushions, greeting cards, bowls and patchwork.

Each project has easy to follow instructions and large bright photos, enabling you to create stunning one off pieces.

I am looking forward to trying out some of the projects and I am interested to hear from anyone who has either used a embellisher machine or created any of projects from this book. 

You can post your creations on my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/emusupcycledgifts 

xxx

Time For A Cuppa

In the studio yesterday I sat in my Grandmothers chair to stuff and sew up some lavender houses I fancied a cup of coffee sorry I am not a big tea drinker and I realized that with all the coasters I had made over time I had never made one for my studio. So you can guess what happened next, I put down what i was doing and started to draw up a design to make a coaster for my desk and here is the result.

I love the rawness of the my design and how it looks like any of my children could of written on it for me. My cup fits perfectly on it and now i can enjoy a cup of coffee while being create.

While I was making this coaster I thought you might like to give it ago so here are some step by step instructions. Hope you have loads of fun and make sure you take TIME FOR A CUPPA while you are busy being creative.

What you need

• Scrape fabric
• Wading
• Scissors
• Needle
• Thread
• Sewing Machine (Optional)
• Pins 

1) Draw on a piece of card the size shape you would like your coaster to be. I choose a heart shape because I love hearts. Remember you need to draw your shape bigger than you want it to be because you are going to be sewing a back to it. You need to allow for 1/4 inch gap for stitching.

2) Cut out your shape and draw around your template on to your scrap fabric. You need to cut 2 out for front and back.

3) Now its time to decorate one of your shapes. On mine from another piece of scrap fabric I cut out a heart and placed it on top. But you could leave it plain if you would like or decorate it with another shape, flower, bird etc... (Please remember that what ever you decide to do it needs to be flat as you are placing a cup on top of it.)

4) Now you need to sew your shape on top. I used a sewing machine but you can also hand sew your shape if you prefer. 

5) You an either leave your design like that or you can add a saying . I decided to add TIME FOR A CUPPA. Joined up writing does not come natural to me so I practiced the my writing on a piece of scrap paper first. You can either hand sew your saying on to your coaster or like I did you can use free motion embroidery with your sewing machine like I did. It is completely up to you and there is no right way or wrong way.   

6) You now need to cut you wading a little bit bigger than your coaster and stack all the pieces together. Wading on the bottom, top of coaster with your design facing you and them the back of your coaster on top right side down so the wrong side of the fabric is facing you. If that makes seance, I am not very good at explaining things. Pin it all together and sew all the way around remembering to leave a inch gap on one of the sides to turn your coaster inside out. Once you have sewn it all together trim you excess wading. 

7) Turn your coaster inside out and iron it flat. Now tuck the gap together and pin. Sew all the way around your coaster close to the edge giving it a nice finish. 

Wella you have finished your lovely coaster. I would love to see your own coaster creations and I would love to share them with everyone. You can send me a picture on facebook at www.facebook.com/emusupcycledgifts ,Twitter at www.twitter.com/EmusGifts or email me at info@emusupcycledgifts.com. I am so looking forward to seeing them.

Thanks for stopping by

XX

Children's Toy Tea Bag Tutorial

My Girls love playing with their toy kitchen and keeping me well watered with lots of cups of tea. This made me think it must be really easy to make them some tea bags so they could extend their play experience at making tea for mummy.  So I created them a new toy that cost me nothing as I just used a few pieces of scrap fabric and felt and five minutes later of being sat in front of the sewing machine a new toy was created.

Sorry Photo is not very great. But my girls have and are still having hours of fun with these that are I am going to make more for them as 4 does not seem to enough!

What you need

• Scrap white felt or fabric
• String
• Needle and thread if sewing my hand or sewing machine
• Blue fabric or felt for the label
• Rice or rose petals o give the feeling of tea leaves inside
• Scissors
• Card
• Tape Measure

Instructions