Placemat Bags

I've been spending the last couple of crafting sessions working on bags! Cute little bags! Most of the bags are very simple construction made from fun placemats that I've found at Target and World Market. I love the prints and this is an easy way to work with those fabrics and make something really cute with them! I've already sold three of these in the past couple of weeks, two to my friend Diane and one on Etsy today, woohoo! Here are the three I posted this morning (the pink one sold almost immediately!):


I also have been dying to make one of the Bamboo Handled Purses from Little Birdie Secrets' tutorial. So last night when I was supposed to be writing my lecture for today, I procrastinated by starting this little bag. Now Little Birdie Secrets used a thicker interior decoration fabric and since I didn't have any of that in my stash that would make a cute bag (or the bag of dreams anyways), I decided to line mine. I got it about half done last night, cutting and sewing the main part of the bag and added the handles this evening. It really came together quite nicely except for one little flaw, one of my seams shows the seam edge (white with the designers mark on it!). Oops. Guess I was a little tired when I was cutting and sewing after all! I should have cut that edge off the fabric or at least used a wider seam allowance to make it disappear! Oh well, this just means I MUST keep the bag for my own and not sell it :) Which is fine by me, I think it's super cute! And I love the color combo that I chose, making the lining also appear at the handle.