Make it: Palm Print Shopper bag and matching clutch

I have a girls holiday booked in June and I just can't find a beach bag I like that is the right size and light enough to roll up in my suitcase. I am too impatient to wait until all the summer stuff is in the shops so as usual I turned to my sewing machine to solve my problem. We have just had this awesome palm print fabric in at Sew Crafty HQ and I knew as soon as I saw it that it was the one I had to use for this project. Then I couldn't decide if I wanted a shopper style or a clutch bag, so I made both!

Make it. Mothers day Tea Bags

It is Mothers day here in the UK on Sunday, so what do you do for the Mum who has everything? Why you make her some DIY heart shaped Peppermint teabags of course! I have been dying to try my hand at these since I saw something similar on Pinterest and my Mum's new love of peppermint tea was a great excuse. Of course you can use any flavour of tea to make these and make them in any shape you like too.

You will need: Coffee filters, Peppermint teabags, cotton thread, pretty string, scissors, fancy hole punch, a sewing machine and some stickers.

Start by emptying a teabag onto some paper, I used a spare coffee filter. Draw your heart shape around the pile of loose tea, leaving some space for movement. Pop the tea back in the bag and cut out your template. Use the template and draw around it onto your coffee filter.

Once you have drawn out all your hearts pin a second filter to the back of the first. Take your filters to the sewing machine and stitch around your heart shapes, just inside the line you have drawn, leaving a gap to fill the bags. As you have finished each bag take the thread ends and tie knots in each end then snip away the excess. It gets messy if you leave all the threads until the end. When you have stitched around all of your bags cut around the pencil line.

Go to the opening in your bag and tip in the contents of the original teabag. Next take your string and tie three knots over each other in one end, and pop it into the opening of your bag. Take your teabag back to the machine and stitch it closed.

Fetch a cup and pop the teabag in and measure how long you would like the string to be on the side of the mug and snip it to size. Get out a pretty hole punch, or a pair of scissors and cut your stickers into a cute shape. I used some small rubber stamps to decorate some plain stickers with little phrases. Take two of the stickers and pop them back to back over the end of the string to make the tag.

I made up some with kraft stickers as tags to mix in with the phrase ones, I love the combination of the white, kraft and pink. Perfect for Mothers day or for a tea lovers birthday. I am giving these to my Mum in this little mug, I'm going to wrap it in cellophane and add a matching gift tag. (I will also give her the rest of the original box of tea bags, so they don't go to waste). Why not add a box of your Mum's favourite biscuits to the parcel for a real tea time treat.

What DIY's are you having a go at this weekend as a gift for your Mum? Or just for fun?

Sammy xxx


We would love to see if you have a go at these. Like with all our DIY's if you do, take a photo and share it with us on Twitter or instagram with the hashtag #livelovemake