This year we chose to do Christmas differently than in the past. We went to Big Bend, rented a house and spent a week hiking in the fantastically varied terrain offered in the parks of the area. My brother and I also discussed how we wanted our kids memory of our time together to be about togetherness and not about how much loot they got and could compare with each other after opening it on December 25th. We discussed the American inclination to accumulate piles and piles of stuff and stuff and more stuff and we decided to limit our spending to as little as possible for each other while still gifting from whatever we could trade or create from our households. You know the saying: 'One man's trash is another man's treasure."? Well, here is a recent example of someone's trash that I crafted into a groovy messenger bag for my niece.
The bags came from my daughter's school, Ronda's Montessori Garden. At the Family Gathering in September, we all helped empty the bags so the sand box was a fresh scooping and measuring wonderland for toddlers. When I turned around, there was a pile of these bags and a light went off in my head. I figured if the plastic was strong enough to hold 25 lbs of sand, surely it could hold a bunch of kid lunch or coats or dolls or a book and other preciousness.
Then I took a gander at the Future Craft Collective blog for a few ideas and then I was off and sewing. What I love about making things this way is that I have no idea where I am going when I first sit down. It is like improving with a sewing machine. I did know I wanted to make something useful but I wasn't sure how the plastic would act when I began working with it. Turns out it was even stronger than I originally expected and the weight of it worked really well so though the bag is not heavy it actually feels substantial and not flimsy when it is in use. Not to mention, no one else will have a bag that is anything like it. So my niece gets to be a trendsetter back home. Cool, huh?!
FYI - That's Study Butte in the reflection on the door.
