Anna, the homemaker: Throwback Thursday {Recycled Party Favors}

Here's another re-post from my "old blog" (because, honestly things have been crazy busy around here with kids out of school for the summer & a visit from my mom). But, I might just start doing this every week...there's some good stuff over there ;)

For my daughter's 8th birthday we came up with an "recycled art" birthday party, combining two of her loves, being green + art. You can see more party details here. Here is a tutorial on how to make the favors we handed out--they were a hit...

Recycled Party Favors

So....H's party had to be rescheduled due to illness, so her party is finally going to happen this weekend--She is beyond excited :)(and I will be happy to have the extra tables out of my living room...)Watch for more party details coming up the end of this week & the beginning of next...I hope to get another little tutorial in before her party (if all goes well) :D

Here's what I came up with for her favors...It started with an idea to just make little favor bags out of the fused plastic, then morphed into these little art "folders" or "wallets"...I haven't come up with a great idea for a name yet.

The most time consuming part of these is fusing the plastic bags...I suggest making these assembly line fashion...fuse all your plastic, then cut them all out, then sew..the sewing takes very LITTLE time---it's really easy. Here we go...

1. Cut out 3 rectangles of fused plastic. One 9 x 7.5 inches (cover), one 5 x 9 inches (pocket) and one 4 x 1.5 inches (tab).

2. Center the tab on the short side of the outside cover, hold in place (you don't want to use pins...the holes will stay). Stitch with the needle positioned to the right all the way around the tab. Then stitch across the the tab to reinforce; move your needle back to center (whatever design you want...stripes..a "X"...)

3. Line up the bottom of the pocket with the bottom of the cover, with the tab situated to the right, and covering up the back side of the stitching you just did. With the needle positioned to the right, top stitch around the entire cover rectangle, attaching the pocket.

4. Trim strings and fold in half towards the tab, crease. Stitch down the center crease (start at the bottom to prevent bunching at the bottom of the pocket). Move your needle to the right, then stitch down both sides of the center line.

5. On the left side of the folder, measure 1 inch from the left seam, mark with a pencil, repeat 2 more times, so that you have 4- 1 inch pockets marked. Stitch, starting at the bottom of the pocket along each line and ending at the top seam.

6. Fill with 4 colored pencils, a small note book & ruler (or whatever else you like)...you want to fill it before attaching the Velcro, so it closes tightly (or not too tightly) :)