I had planned to publish the instructions for the cozy sweater purse in my previous post titled Homemade Christmas gift ideas, to-go boxes and purses… Oh my but the post became rather long and for the sake of the sanity of my readers I put the instructions here in a separate post so it could be found more easily.

All you need to do to make this nifty little sweater gift bag/ purse is find an old knitted sweater or perhaps a nice wool seater that has been felted (or if you are like me it was mistakenly shrunk).

Take your favorite purse pattern or draw your own. I’ll post a my own free pattern here for your to print and use, please don’t repost it though, link to this blog post if you wish to share the pattern/ instructions with your own readers.

Place the top edge of the pattern along the bottom part of the sweater so that the decorative ribbing/ edge of the sweater becomes the top portion of the purse.

Place right sides together and stitch the sides and bottom of the purse. Note do not stitch the top sides of the bag that this time!

Turn right side out, clip and and press the edges so that the purse has the desired shape.
With right sides out you will now sew the top sides of the bag (the seam you are sewing should be on the outside of the bag, opposite of the rest of the bags seams).

Next cut two 8 inch strips from the sweater for the straps. Mine were 1 inch wide. If you prefer you can use cording or belting inside the strap.

If using belting or cording wrap the sweater fabric around it press with iron and hand stitch.
If you are not using belting you can sew the pieces together (wrong side out) and then turn the strips right side out after sewing them.

Place the sewed straps into the strap slits and hand sew the slits back together with the straps inserted. Fold the top portion of the bag down and you are done!

This homemade gift bag/ purse is very customizable and can be made into any shape or pattern you like. You can sew buttons or beads onto the purse for decoration or you can even iron on some decorative patches to customize the purse even more.

I found some cheap bath items that I plan to fill the homemade purses with, then I’ll give these as hostess/ host gifts this holiday!

At last the pattern I used is available for download! Simply click the link and when the photo displays righ click it and choose “save image as” – sweater-purse-pattern.jpg Print out he pattern an cut the blue outside away and your ready to begin crafting. Enjoy!

The post Recycled sweater purse and glove instructions appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.

Anyway, I have also been exploding with gift giving ideas this holiday season! I just taught myself how to fold little “Chinese food” type to-go boxes that I plan to stuff with goodies (maybe pecan buds and cookies or some homemade fudge) and give away this holiday. I’ll share how to make your own below.

I also read about making little handbags from old wool sweaters and thought I would give it a try. I went to the local thrift store and bought all the fun knit and wool sweaters I could find, they sell clothes by the pound there soI go lots of sweaters! These sweater purses are super cute, you can out gifts in them like bath sets or an assortment of fluffy socks or whatever else you can think of. You can also make matching gloves to go with this purse out of the sleeves of the sweater! These look so cute an cozy and are super easy to make!

To make the origami box with fold down lid follow these instructions: I am also planning to make a video of this fold because it’s difficult to explain and is easier to show, besides I am a visual learner so videos help me. This craft can be done with card stock, origami paper or just plain old computer paper (or old catalogs if you want to recycle). I used computer paper in the video.

1. Start out with a perfect square piece of paper.
2. Fold the lower left corner up to the upper right corner, repeat this for the lower right and upper left corners. This will leave you with an X running through the center of your square piece of paper.
3. Next fold the trip of your lower left corner into the center so that the point is just touching the center of the X you just created. Repeat this for each of the 4 corners.
4. Now unfold all the corners, you will see 4 squares inside on the inside of the paper and 2 triangles on each corner of the paper.
5. Now fold the tip of your lower left corner to the newly formed line just under the opposing corner. Repeat this for each of the 4 corners.
6. Keeping the 4 center boxes flat fold each side of the box up and crease the square box in between so the sides flap folds out. Repeat this for each of the 4 sides.
7. Fold the side box flaps and glue
8. Fold the top box flaps in an hole punch them so they can be tied with ribbon.
9. Decorate your box and fill with goodies!

I had planned to publish the instructions for the cozy sweater purse but this post became rather long and for the sake of the sanity of my readers I put the instructions in a separate post so they could be found more easily.

The post Homemade christmas gift ideas, to-go boxes and purses… Oh my! appeared first on Updates from Ryder Family Farm.