Wednesday, November 24, 2010

:: pins & needles - Trinket Keepers

Trinket Keepers


Last week I did a bundle of Christmas sewing. For some strange and totally insane reason I decided to sew a bunch of trinket keepers for the nieces/nephews/sons/daughter in my life. This I'm sure, would have been a fabulous idea if I was an only child and I married an only child. But no, my husband and I are both 1 of 6 children which means a bucket load of offspring. 21 in fact! (4 of them haven't even started having children yet!)

Anyway, I like to give every child a Christmas present, seeing as though I'm too disorganised to do birthday presents. The thought of walking into Toys R Us however and filling a trolley holds no appeal whatsoever. I spotted this idea last year at  'Amazing Mae' and bookmarked it for Christmas 2010. I had originally planned to used an awesome book of iron-on transfers that I bought, but these did not work at all. I'm not sure if the humidity had affected them or they were just a (expensive!) dud. Anyway, I ended up screenprinting the designs.

I've popped things like matchbox cars, teck decks, bouncy balls, craft stuff and stationary into them.

- hook onto your pants -
- take in the car -

- hook onto your school bag - 
- Disclaimer: The underage 'school child' model was treated both with respect and dignity -

I think these would be fabulous for school to carry show-n-tell in or other little treasures. Kids love to bring in little treasures from home but are always losing them (or more commonly claiming someone stole them from their bag which is nonsense because they're always hiding under the portracks).

Funnily enough, after looking at the top photo I realised I've missed four kids. Bummer. Back to the sewing machine.

For more creative goodness check out Kootooyoo.

7 comments:

  1. What a wonderful idea and I love the owls. I'm sure all the little people in you family will love these little treasure bags.

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  2. Cool! I want to set up a screenprinting station in my sun room but seeing as I've already taken up a third of the room with my sewing area I'm not sure my husband would go for it. What sort of equipment do you use? Was that from a stencil?

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  3. Hi Lizajane,

    I used a silk screen and squeegee pinched from the resource room at school. I picked out a couple of stencils (google images) online and printed them onto freezer paper. I used this as it is more durable then printer paper. I've used printer paper with my class in the past and the stencil tends to deteriorate after 10 or more uses. I cut out the stencil with nail scissors.

    I used standard acrylic paint mixed with fabric medium.

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  4. My book of iron on tranfers was an expensive dud. Your screen prints look groovy.

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  5. Such a fantastic idea - kids love little bags! And your model is just adorable :-)

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  6. Great idea. Your bag would have been handy when my younger daughter was little. Her pockets were always filled with sticks and stones that she'd collect. Now she collects boys!

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  7. yes - gorgeous idea - nice work on the hook...

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