Eye Spy Bag Instructions

A couple of you asked for the instructions to these eye spy bags. I meant to post this sooner so you could do some for Christmas. And of course, the one time that I actually take pictures through the whole process-- I manage to eff things up. I got so frustrated, and I'm pretty embarrassed posting these pics even after all my mistakes, but whatever. My brain doesn't function properly on this side of the world. But as frustrated as I get even thinking about how much I messed up, I promise not to cuss.

Anyway-- the bags I made were for Christmas. I don't think you can really tell from the pictures, but I think I found some pretty cute things to go in there that had to do with Christmas. I found some cute babies in the baby shower section at Walmart. He worked perfect as baby Jesus. I held on to a sacrament cup at church, and it's held up so far, but I'll let you know how it does long term. After Christmas last year I bought a ton of tiny Christmasy things on clearance (gotta love clearance). If you really are interested in what all I put in there I'll send you a list-- but I'm sure you're all clever enough to come up with plenty on your own.

I haven't always sewn the list on there, but I did these past times and I think it was fine. I get paranoid about things happening to kids' eyes, which is why I haven't used a list before. But I rounded the corners of the laminate. So there.

Okay-- so cut the fabric in six inch squares. Cut a 3 1/2 inch square out of one side. Cut a 4 inch square out of vinyl. It is vinyl, right? You know what I'm talking about anyway. I've heard of some people using a clear shower curtain, but I don't see the point in that when you can just grab some in whatever thickness you want at Joanns.

I hope I'm clear in the pictures and descriptions. No offence, but I tried to dumb it up a little-- just so you would understand. It's not that late right now, but my brain is done with thinking. I'll read this again tomorrow morning to see if it makes sense.

This is why I love doing these bags: I love small things. And yes, this container really is full of tiny things. So much fun. I usually put 30-40 trinkets in the bags. I always put a couple things in there that they'll really have to search for. Try to use different textures just to liven things up. :)

I bought this at Micheals in the doll stuffing section. Use about a cup to fill each bag. Give or take.

I liked Penny's. But I have to point out that instead of a straight stitch to secure the vinyl, I tried to use a heart pattern. Not a good idea. Don't know if it's just because it's hot here or what, but the vinyl kept sticking to the machine, so instead of hearts, they were just weird designs. Oh well.


I liked the look of this fabric, but it was absolute crap to sew with. Don't know what the deal was. The fabric I used with Penny's worked well. The Halloween fabric I used worked well, but since it's flannel (or whatever it's called) it's thicker. When the fabric is thicker, you don't need to use quite as much filler because it's harder to move around. The thinner fabric you could even use a bit more. You'll get the hang of it.

I usually pin the vinyl in place, but this time I had the genius idea to just tape it. It seemed to work a little better-- but just see what works for you.

After you straight stitch it, cover the raw edge with a zig zag stitch. You may notice on the finished pictures that I forgot to do that on the green one. Rats.

I told you I was dumbing it up. Just remember when you start to sew not to start in a corner, because it's a pain to hand stitch a corner shut. FYI. Leave about 1 1/2 inches open so you can turn it the right way and then funnel in the doll filler and then toss in the trinkets.

The fabric wasn't cooperating and I realized I forgot to sew in the list. Poopy. But I'm still not actually cussing.

Ah ha! I remembered the list this time.

Finally finished. See how horrible the corner looks? Son of a goat. And of course this is the one I forgot to zig zag.

I put the train in there for the Polar Express. Can you see the Santa cap? How cute is that? Micheals and Hobby Lobby have these bags of buttons that have so many cute buttons in them. Love those things.

Crappy finished picture. The green thing says Jingle. You can see baby Jesus in the top right. This is the one that I forgot to sew the list in, but I sewed it on after.

Have fun, and I want to see YOUR finished projects.

Aussie Tooth Fairy

Here's another post that I should have done ages ago. I think these are from August. Thomas lost some teeth, and like he's always done, he decorated the envelope that he puts his tooth in. He always does a good job-- but I loved this one. At first he put on there that he wanted 50 $2, but when I told him how much that was, he changed it to 6 50 cents. Funny kid.

Here's pictures from two teeth that he lost.








When I was putting these pictures together, I thought maybe I'd write about Australian money.

Their bills are plastic, and they come in 5, 10, 20, 50, and 100. Anything above that my poor eyes haven't seen. You can tell in the pictures that there's a see-through area on them. One thing I think is smart is that their bills are different sizes and colors. One time I was exchanging some money at the bank here and the teller asked me how visually impaired people could tell the difference between our notes. Before that I never even thought about it.

Their coins come in 5, 10, 20, and 50 cents, one dollar, and two dollar. Not a smart idea. So many coins! The wallets are made different here to accomodate all the coins. It's just a pain to always have so many coins. AND! What's their problem with pennies??? Oh, and they don't have names like nickel or dime-- they just call them 5 cent or 10 cent pieces. Bor-ing.

Okay, I'll let you all know how stupid I am. I knew that they didn't have pennies, so I was confused in the stores when I saw so many prices ending with cents other than 5 or 0. I didn't know that they just total everything together and then round up or down. So there you go: Allison the dunce.

Canungra Show

Canungra is about 30 minutes away, and it's the town that Jason grew up in. They had a show-- or a fair as we Americans would say. These pictures are from August! Isn't that horrible? Talk about a slow poster. Anyway-- Jason took the kids to go see all the animals and watch the different shows they had on. The kids had fun, Jason learned his lesson, and I enjoyed every moment of peace while they were gone.



Below is the wood chopping competition. Jason didn't take pictures of the other events, but they had things like pig races, beaut ute (suped up vehicles), and an American group that did basketball tricks (sounded like the Harlem Globetrotters when he was describing it to me).



These next pictures crack me up. Sam really liked this baby goat, as you can see. And the goat obviously liked Sam because he was trying to nurse from his finger!











This isn't a pony, it's a full grown miniature horse! Isn't that crazy?


They call these dagwood dogs. Of course I'm sure you can figure out it's a corndog. Silly Australians think they have to be so different from Americans.

4th of the 4th

I got tagged by my cousin Sarah (LoVE her!). This is from Jason's nan's birthday. I'll admit when I got tagged, I thought to myself that if the picture was crappy I'd just pick another one-- but this is the real deal. 4th of the 4th.

I know some people don't like getting tagged, but some love it. I don't know what category YOU fall into-- but if your heart so desires this, then I tag YOU.

My new favorite picture

There aren't words good enough to describe my Penny. (Of course, the opposite is true too.)

Jason went to the beach with the youth from our branch recently. I haven't been to this beach-- but it looks nice. He took the kids with him on one of the trips (didn't get any pics of Thomas). Jason thought it was hilarious that this guy got caught after fishing. Those rock columns are cool, huh?

I'm in LoVE

As some of you may know, when I lived in Texas I had a business with my sister-in-law Shelly (Nathan's wife). And if you didn't know that, then you're a punk, because it's right here on the left of my blog. Anyway-- I lo-lo-lo-loved it! (Oh Shelly, I MISS you!!!) Then after our move from hell-- I think I just kind of became jaded about a lot of stuff. I used to find so much comfort in my sewing projects. Since being here I've only made a handful of things. The other night I decided to organize all my ribbon. I have a lot of ribbon, so that was a big job. And thanks to the freaking idiot movers, everything was a complete mess. But I did it.

And my fabric is a whole other story. Don't know if I have the strength to tackle that yet.







After I put all the ribbon in here, the drawer collapsed from the weight.


Just bits 'n pieces.



Here's something I made for my kids for Halloween that I forgot to post earlier. It's an eye-spy bag. I put over 40 things in there! Don't know if you can tell in the pictures, but I put things in there like: a rat, skeleton, tombstone, fly, maggot (yes, I found a maggot), bat, worm, cat, eyeball, jack-o-lantern, and lots of other Halloweeny things. It was fun making it and the kids love it.