Anyway, here are a couple of ideas that were passed along to me from Martha Stewarts craft pages and I remade them in my own way.
This is a super easy and quick little treat to make for friends or work collegues on a special occasion, instead of a bag of herbal tea and mug how about trying this.
On Martha's site she suggested cutting the corner from a flat type paper bag-- Wow, that is easy and very throw away without guilt. I thought I would make my corner bookmarks a bit more substantial and use scrap fabrics. So this little corner bookmark is made by taking two 2 1/2 inch squares and folding each to make a triangle. Then just sew the straight right angle sides together -- in this case I put a bit of rick rack between the two folded triangles, but you can leave it plain. You can sew it so that the seam allowance is on the outside and is a bit frayed, it gives a bit of edge that is easy to find when you go back to re-open your book, or you can sew the seam and turn the triangles so that the seam is on the inside and you have a finished edge -- you can make dozens by using "chain" sewing. A fun little treat to give if you keep them on hand or carry with you as spontaneous gifts.
And another Martha suggestion from her craft pages is a bia tape tote bag (you can go to her site and get greater detail if you need) (http://www.marthastewart.com/).
My version of this tote is still to use the bias tape, except in this case, I made it myself by cutting 2 1/2 inch wide strips -- I made about 240 inches worth but had about 24 inches left, so 6 strips cut the width of you fabric makes enough and left over. I also used my own measurements because I based this project on a pre quilted panel that I had picked up at the second hand store quite some time ago. The main bag is about 12" wide by 15" deep, with two pockets, the one with the kitty is about 9 x 15 and the bottom one about 5 x 15. I used the 'tape' for all the edges including the handles -- the handles are about 24 inches long with a bit of a fold over with an "x" to hold them to the bag. It did take a bit longer than the book marks but not by much -- maybe about 45 minutes, mainly because it is pre printed and pre quilted so there was no need for lining or quilting the fabric. I have no babies, but this will go into my stash of future gifts, I know that there will be some new mom and baby that can make use of this sometime soon...
So, the actual tip here is to look at things with the idea of making slight adjustments to something you might see elsewhere and make it your own -- oh and when it comes to copyright, it is probably a good idea to at least give credit to where you saw the original idea or where you picked up the idea, even if that is not the original. It is polite to at least say where your idea was derived from...
