Sara In Akko

My personal key ring has just undergone some major work-related changes


My key ring used to be simple (really simple) but now  it looks like that big old set of janitor keys hanging around some dude's belt. Despite the fact that they are heavy and jingle and slow me down when I'm on the go, I actually do need a surprising amount of these keys on a constant basis now and am forced to find a way to hold them along with all the other junk I tote around at work.



The tutorials online abound for this sort of project but as I only have this hardware on hand the project looks something like this:

Find heavy scrap of fabric, sew tube inside out and turn to right side, top stitch into a hand-sized loop. Attach to key ring and top stitch to reinforce. Easily find your less hideous keyring in style.


The close observer may also notice that this is the same scrap of fabric which I used to make my pinch close coin purse that holds my daily travel fare. So now it's a matching set. Find the tutorial of the coin purse remake here.

Next office preparedness craft is a true essential for your desk or purse, not to be missed.

Even if you aren't a die-hard Martha fan, you're going to want to catch her and Joan Rivers crafting together. It's just that good!



Take a minute to process that; remake Marc Jacobs with felt and a glue gun?

I'm no fashionista, but as a sister to and mother of  2 girls with the fancy gene I can tell you that this is probably wrong. And yet, it's sooo right.This purse was made to be remade.

But I'm not entirely in love with the results of this craft session gone astray.


Step 1). If you have some spare pleather lying around in fanciful colors you can start by crafting yourself a basic clutch, any size and shape you like will work. I found this great turquoise purse for about $2. Cutting apart an old purse saves you the trouble of finding the zippers and other important purse parts.

If you're crafting your own clutch from scratch, skip to the bottom, otherwise stay with me.

*Tip: I mix paint when I've finished with one batch of hearts by adding the new paint to my original color. This keeps your hearts mostly within the same color family or tone so everything is well coordinated.

A recent Blogher post caught my attention. It is the pledge of a a woman who blogs over at Time' s Fool to spend a month being thankful by writing a thank you a day for 30 days.

I (perhaps foolishly) have taken on this superb personal challenge by declaring my undying love for the art of thank you note writing in a public forum, and  have pledged to spend this month being thankful. In addition to my normal posts, which I promise will be more forthcoming in the nearing days, I will also be posting a daily thank you note for the many things I have to be thankful for.

February 1, 2011 Thank You Bobby McFerrin. Truly, thank you.

Dear Mr McFerrin,

When I got in the cab on my first day of my new job early this morning I heard something quietly playing in the background. I thought to myself that this song would carry me through a day of bureaucratic paperwork and processing with the gentle guidance back towards the larger picture of life.

When I learned that I had jumped the gun and arrived for a job that I apparently did not yet receive, I stayed calm and hummed quietly in my head the words I heard earlier. When I thought of tearing up just a bit out of embarrassment, I played your voice back  as my mantra and as I waited for the cab that never came to take me home and remove me from this catastrophic inward hate-fest I repeated it louder to myself.

Some words can be manipulated to sound angry when used out of context or turn around to bite us when we shout them inside our own minds. Your words seem to be so perfectly clear that even in some very unpleasant situations they can pull a person through.

So  thank you Mr McFerrin for your prolific advice. I did not for an instant worry but instead, decided to be happy.

Please accept my most sincere thanks for your guidance.

PS Next time I write you, would it be alright if I called you Bobby? I know we've never met before but I feel like the two of us have been through so much today, it only seems right that we bypass the  formalities.

I am not the mother who bribes her children (normally).

Really. My kids aren't looking at the candy at the check-out line to take home with us, they know it won't happen. But if they behave very nicely for the entire time in the market, they are allowed to reorganize the misplaced packs of gum.

So why is it that this week, a week with no birthdays or holidays, I'm trying to craft little gifts to get them through the days?

One has a mysterious returning (but otherwise symptom-free) fever and the other a spastic cough with an asthma diagnosis trailing behind. With MD visits, x-rays, blood tests and long inhaler sessions, my 4 year old's child-sized patience is waning (the penguin is our nebulizer friend, he's sort of a frienemy).

So what can I do to make the littles in my home feel better?


Ten minutes of playing with scrap organza and some shredded black chintz turn very unhappy child above into super happy child bellow.

I'm beginning to see the beauty of the many crafty blogers who scan the Anthropologie catalog for things to remake. First, the style is often simplistic and lovely. But then, there is the part that these simple snazzy accessories can cost a good chunk of your hard earned cash. Where's the fun in that?

So here is my latest inspiration, ripped from the (online) catalog. It's a purse, it's a garden, it's a work of wearable art. It's also $268... umm no, for many reasons not in this lifetime.



Let's see if I can't make this for under $5.



Start with my favorite (not quite) a dollar store clutch hardware (ripped from the infamous cigarette purse).

I happen to have a few spare yards of black chintz from an old project so I'll be making the basic clutch out of that.

While I would like to keep in the spirit of the garden that abounds, I actually don't love the pinked edges or these tones 100%. So I made an insane amount of fabric flowers from scrap chiffon.

The rest is in the art of assembly and color play.

Looks like I just saved my family $263. I'll be putting that in my birthday fund.

Actual time for this craft, 1 week of idle sick-time on the couch or possibly 1 hour for the bag and a few hours to cut and assemble all those flowers.

Bonus purse!



I was not in like with the colors of the first attempt, so I tried a few different combinations. You should too, it's fun.

The trouble my children have with sharing toys isn't usually their lack of desire to share, it is mostly their lack of desire for sharing to interrupt their own toy enjoyment.
Take, for example, our doll farm. This is what my four year old calls a wooden barn house where all the small doll live with their tiny pieces of furniture and accessories. Also residing in the doll farm are the many tiny animals that belong to my two year old.

For the most part, these toys live together in harmony. Unfortunately, for the two year old to get to his toys, he must rummage through his older sister's well-organized doll house.

The solution? The felt barn toy carrier.


This is inspired by one of my favorite tutorials from  UKLass. This tutorial also appeared in One Yard Wonders, but I personally like the original dollhouse from the blog the best.


I decided against the fold out design and side closures because two is a delicate age where all sorts of hidden toy elements set off tantrums on occasion. Best to steer clear with something more straight forward that I won't have to open and close a thousand times a day to appease two year old whims.

If you are a reader of SewMamaSew's blog, you know that today is their official giveaway day, encouraging bloggers who are also crafters and sewists and general supply hoarders to spread the joy of Giveaway Day. 

So without further ado... the Giveaway!!!

Or one of these White Lotus Pendants

How to Enter:
Hop on over to the www.ModaMama.Etsy.com and leave me a comment on this post letting me know whether you'd like a ring or a pendant and what color you'd like if your the winner chosen at random. They come in  a dozen colors and I'll try to get you the one you really super want if you win or "Follow Me" for a chance to win. One entry of each type per person please.

I'll be closing comments at 12AM PST December 17, 2010 and posting the winner shortly after. 


Choose from: (see numbered photo)
1. Violet
2. Lavender Fields
3. Burgundy Cream
4. Lilac Parade
5. Wisteria Cream
6. Gothic Fairytale
7. Poison Plum Passion
8. White Lotus
9. Black Widow
10. Enchanted Bordeaux
11. Peaches and Cream

*BONUS* Keep checking back for our winner this week and I'll be giving out a coupon code for 20% any one jewelry item from ModaMama good through the end of this month.

It seems that 2 is about the age where Mr. Potato head becomes wildly appealing in our house. Unfortunately 2 is not an age where you can successfully cram all of Mr. Potato Head's gazillions of parts into his backside storage or his silly trunk (that never can stay closed).

Tired of the pieces on the floor, we've made Mr. Potato Head a new sack for storage. Now to see if a 2 year old can keep this tidy. Right.

Although he is a beloved member of this family, there is a finesse involved in making sure a felt rendition of Mr Potato Head doesn't seem like some sort of racial epitaph. Turns out I'm not the only person who has had some trouble with this spud in the past.  Read the Washington Post here.

I've notice that recently I've been receiving a bit of traffic off of one neat blog that I wish I could understand. There seems to be a lot of fancy quilting, intricate knitting and more.

BUT it's entirely in Finnish. They featured my Owl Pouch Tutorial 2 weeks ago and ever since, I keep seeing more and more Finnish visitors to this blog.

Welcome to all my new Finnish friends. Glad to see you stopping by.

P.S. I used Google Translate to translate this post's title. If my Finnish is very off, my apologies.

I've finally figured out the secret to working with the vegan sherling fabric, you just have to cut into it. I had a yard or so I just couldn't resist buying and I knew it was made to be tiny Baby Uggs. It looks like all babies this year will be getting matching bootie/mit/hat sets.

I've been trying to wait to post these until my children receive them this evening, but I just haven't got that sort of patience. The entire set was finished without the use of my sewing machine and some of the gifts were a LOOOOONG time in the making, so I just can't wait any longer to share!

My 2 and 4 year old like to play together and any gifts given need to be something that accommodates that.

Every day since I brought these stupid dish towels home, I look at them shoved into my already bursting pile of projects in waiting and think...

"What did I even want those for?"

I am not an impulsive shopper, I go to the store for what I need and although I tend to hoard craft supplies, I don't buy something with out a rough image of where the project is going to take me.

Maybe I saw these soft plush dish towels and thought I'd make them festive for Chanukah. Perhaps I forgot that matching dish towels in our home means matching coffee stains, not ribbon trimmed for the holidays.

I any case, I kept the towels until the fateful day when I decided enough. I dug them out to prepare for an upcoming 2nd birthday party for my son. The theme will be fish and I am happy to announce I have found a use for these dish towels. Thanks About.com, no seriously.*




In any case I am glad to say that along with the baggied goldfish soaps and the other fish treats our guests will be taking home, they will also be receiving whale washcloth scrubbers.

I like that this little scrubber is a quick sew, (even if your machine is trapped in repair) and that the nature of the terrycloth loops hide all the ragged hand-stitches you otherwise might see. Plus, you can make them tiny enough that they fit your child's tiny hand. Face it, child sized is somehow cuter.

I'll keep posting more on the upcoming party as it comes into place.

*I'd like to state that this is the first time in history that a search leading to About.com has actually produced an answer to my crafting question (often it is just like a reading a summary of a wiki article on any given topic). There's even a video with this tutorial in case you can't visualize how it fits together.

I can't tell you how excited I am that one of my Chanukah Crafts was featured on The Crafty Crow today. The Crafty Crow is a collection of' crafts for children and for a variety of ages.

This is a blog that I check regularly to see what sorts of amazing things other crafters have been up to and an essential place to stop over to if you are looking at a long holiday break with no idea what to do to keep the kiddies engaged and creative.

Check it out, its a great collective of ideas and innovation in the world of child imagination.


You might recognize some other prominent Jewish craft-sters also featured. What a great morning surprise.

You can see the original Color-fun and Counting Menorah HERE

Thanks to everyone who entered this weeks Chanukah Crayon Giveaway. While there were a ton of great ideas that I will save in my crafting bank for later the final project is a variation on an old favorite.



Much like the Dreidel Gelt Bag which can be seen here I stitched up a tinier version that takes up a quarter sheet of pre-cut felt for each student. This is the perfect size for a set of crayons and a Chanukah note from our family to the 31 kids in the preschool class. The tutorial for this simple project can be found in the link above.



What about our prize winners you ask. The random number generator from Random.org has told me the lucky winner is #5 Shalom. Thanks to everyone for entering. Our winner SHALOM should contact me this week to get me details on how to get your prize to you (you never left me an email).