Crafting busy bag

Hi everyone design elf Katrina here with a slightly out of the box project. As you know if you have read this blog before I do like to use everything and anything in my craftyness and this time is no exception, I am using those wonderful plastic sealable bags Sarah-Jane sends some of our orders in! I know it is not strictly something the Fruit Pixie sells but I thought is was such a good idea you might like to have a go at making one too.

 As a certified craft addict I just HAVE to take things to do with me when I go on holiday, I might not get time to do anything but I would go dolally if I had to go a whole week without my creative bits and bobs being to hand. I have tried and made all sorts of things to put them before I pack them in the case but I think I have found the best one yet, plus it was great fun to make too!!

  I spotted on Pinterest something called a busy bag, a bag to put toys and things in to take with you to keep the children quiet.So I thought why should children have all the fun and adapted it to suit my crafty needs.You could use this not only to take things away with you but for classes or just to move things around the house.

The outer part of the bag is padded with quilt wadding to protect the things inside and has a closure with Velcro so you can alter the thickness of your bag.

On the inside of the front flap I added some pen pockets.

The lining of the bag was cut in half and 4 thick sealable bags were sewn in to make pockets to store anything in really. The reason I like this is they are plastic so waterproof so if anything dose leak in transit it is contained in the bag. It means also you can have a bag for paper crafting and another for your stitching, they will all be safe and kept seperate. Also when they do eventually wear out they can be replaced by stitching in another bag. 

The bags I used are fantastic thick plastic bags the Fruit Pixie sends your order in, They are the best sealable bags I have ever come accross!

On the back part of the bag I also added another pocket with a velcro fastening, thought this would be good to store my art journal

So there it is my new creative busy bag! I have a holiday coming up so I cant wait to pack it and give it a go.

Of course you could make a busy bag for anything you want to. I am sure you can think of lots of ways it can be useful to you.

If you have any questions about my bag feel free to ask

The things stored in my busy bag photos and the bags used are from The Fruit Pixie online shop - http://www.thefruitpixie.co.uk/ 

The bags I used will sometimes come with your order in from the Fruit Pixie.

Corner keepers

Hi! Design Elf Katrina here. First I have to apologise for not posting here for so long. Life has just been getting in the way of my crafting recently, I am sure you know how that feels but I think things have settled down a bit now and I have been able to get back in my craft nook again.

    So what have I been up to, well I love all the wonderful ephemera The Fruit Pixie brings us, thanks to Sarah- Jane's skill of finding those little gems, so I have used some as well as some paper scraps we all keep to make what I call corner keepers.

   I have been making these for years, they are a fun quick little project that would be lovely to slip onto a corner of a book you are giving as a gift or use in recipe books to mark you favourite recipe or anywhere really. They are also great little projects to keep children busy.

They are very easy to make. All you need is an old envelope and something to decorate you corner keeper.

First draw the shape you want, I used a template for my heart. You just need to make sure the corner of the envelope is in one piece when you cut your shape out, as long as you do that you can make any shape you wish.

You can make 2 out of each envelope, I made the heart and simply cut the corner off for the other one.

Then all you need to do is decorate them

For this one I cut the fairy from one of the pieces of ephemera and then used a star punch to make a little stencil to apply Cosmic Shimmer sparkle paste through. I  added a little of the paste to her wings and dress too. I cut out a dictionary entry to finish it off.

For the heart one I used a scrap of the Graphic 45 Bohemian Bazaar papers and added another dictionary entry.

You can use anything to decorate them as long as its flat.

This is a great way to use up all those scraps and there are always envelopes you can recycle too!

Hope you will give it a go

      Happy Crafting!

                                     Love Katrina