See-through bags

Does anyone else ever fall in love with one particular craft or item and suddenly decide they need one in every color?

Once Kaitlyn started requesting the Polly Pockets, all I could think about was those little tiny outfits and dolls all over the house.  I already find parts to all of their toys in the oddest places, and the last thing I wanted to do was watch Kaitlyn's dream present get lost all over the house.  I often put them in ziploc bags, but . . . the kids aren't really interested in keeping their toys in ziplocs.

And then I saw this blog post.  She had my exact quandry, only she knew something I didn't: how to sew with clear vinyl.

I was rather nervous about it, but now I am a total convert.  That stuff is wonderfully easy to sew with.  And so awesome!  Since we are all about matching things up around here, I went looking for Princess fabric for the Princess Polly Pockets.  It doesn't get more girly than fabric with Princesses, hearts and stars on a pink background.

It took a bit of work the first day or two, making sure that every time she moved on to another toy I was right there to say "okay, since you're done with the Polly Pockets, let's keep them nice and safe in their bag!"  But now she is rather good at the idea for a three year old.  And the true victory is that we haven't lost a single itty-bitty dress.

In case you want to make your own, the only changes that I personally made to her tutorial was to use thinner vinyl (I'm making a fabric bag, not a box) and not double up the top fabric (because you don't see the inside all that often).  Oh, and instead of sewing the top into a tube and hoping it matched the bottom circle, I sewed the vinyl onto the circle almost all the way, made the seam where I was now confident it would need to be, and then finished sewing along the bottom.

So then I spotted the Matchbox cars all over our house.  Did you know they have Matchbox fabric at Wal-Mart, of all places?  And then there were the Toy Story little figures that Tyler got for Christmas.

I should probably stop soon.  But aren't these bags awesome for toddlers?  They can match what goes inside to the design on the outside, learn to clean up, and still get to see their toys even when they are all tucked away safely.  The last one took me an hour and a half from start to finish.

And speaking of toys that tuck away, check out my Christmas present in action:

Cool, huh? My parents got this for me.  I can't say I ever even thought about having this sort of thing before, but it is rather fun to work with.  Instead of searching for a non-hideous background to take pictures of my crafts, now I can just open up my little light box.  The camera goes on that tripod-ish thing in front, by the way.  And then it all folds up neatly into this.

Hooray for toys that actually have a neat, tidy home!