party favor

Alright, indulge me in one more wee birthday post here. Since I am fairly craft impaired, I wanted to share a triumph in an epic battle between the sewing machine and me. I wanted to sew little flannel bags to put some goodies in for the three friends (plus siblings) that Zach invited to his camp out celebration. This would take a normal person probably no more than a hour to accomplish. It took me several days. And several colorfully worded exchanges with this machine that I am sure was laughing at me as it tangled and unthreaded and jammed. Zach would engage in something else while I sewed and stop by every now and again, look at me and say, "Mama, you seem frustrated. Take a deep breath, it seems like you could use some cuddles." Damn him for learning what I have tried to teach him rather than letting me toss the blasted machine overboard.

But here they are, the little flannel baggies. The stitiches have a dunken swagger to them and I wouldn't be surprised if they dissolved not long after going home with the kids, but they did the trick. I used some red ribbon to secure them and wood burned the kids names on wood chip tags (from Narural Earth Farm on etsy).

(Yes, you read it right. Gauthier. They're French.)

Inside were agate slices and these cool, hand carved compass/ whistle combos (also from etsy at Steam Bent Canes, a find borrowed from MamaRoots).

And then some stickers Zach made with his beloved sticker machine using pictures from an old nature book we found at GoodWill. Finally we used a few more of the illustrations from the nature book to create these little blank books for the kids.

The idea and excellent tutorial (if I can do it, you know she explained it well) came from Nicola at Which Name.  Basically, we used blank paper inside of old paper bags and stitched on (with the wiley sewing machine again) the pictures, then stitched together the book. Voila!

We actually DID spend a day making the rounds between the Dollar Store and Target and Joanne's and Michael's searching for something to give out as party favors (which begs the question, do parties really need favors? But that's a whole different discussion). But both Zach and I could not stomach shelling out cash for plastic trinkets. "That seems junky," he'd say. And he was right. It was so much more satisfying and dare I say fun despite wanting to harm the sewing machine, to come up with our own ideas and spend the time crafting them together. That was the best party favor for this mama, creative time with my boy.