Big Brother & Sister Bags

Baby #3 is due in 5 weeks so I have been busy preparing big brother and sister for our new arrival. I wanted them to have something special waiting for them at the hospital so I created these big brother & sister bags...

I found the monogram templates here on Skip to My Lou. She shows you how to make simple applique monograms and gives you a template for each letter. Thanks, Cindy!

I found the bags at Hobby Lobby for $1.50 each. They are thin but perfect for my purpose.

I wish I had followed her tutorial completely because I went for the zig zag stitch, which I had never done before since I have only been sewing since November. My zig zag stitching skills are seriously lacking around corners and small circles. Yikes. The bags came out far from perfect, but that is okay with me and the kids will never notice! I am confident they will just be thrilled that their special letter marks their bag...

I found some cheap t-shirts at Wal-Mart. Pink for Avery and blue for Tyson, of course. I used scrap fabric to cut out letters to personalize each shirt. I first printed off the letters in the font I wanted from the computer. I cut out each letter and used them as stencils for the fabric. This was a very time consuming process but well worth it. After each fabric letter was cut out, I heat and bonded them to the shirts. I tried the machine at first, but I am just not good enough yet to sew tiny letters so I resorted to using my hands. These shirts may never get done before the baby gets here but I am trying...

Avery got a bonus of a coordinating skirt for fun. I would show you how I made the skirt, but my clothes sewing abilities are very limited. So while I love the finished product, my method of getting there is not worthy of repeating just yet!

Here are some other items that will fill the bags along with the shirts. A few dollar store items and a couple books found at a secondhand store in great condition. Nothing fancy but definitely fun...

The bags can later be used to hold books during library visits and to carry toys and such to family and friends houses!

Please join me in checking out these fun link parties!

Happy Tuesday!