Totes for the Tikes

Since being called to be the Primary Secretary in my ward, I have throughly enjoyed being with the little ones in our ward. Our ward primary is quite small with 3-Sunbeams 1-CTR 4 about 3-CTR 5&6 and the rest Valiants 8-11 with a grande total of 15 to 20 kids on our best Sundays.

We have mostly boys and just  a few girls in our combined Junior and Senior primary so our Sundays can be super fun. We have a great presidency and dedicated teachers who care about the children.

 For Christmas/New Year's we wanted to give each child a special gift and I volunteered to use up my left over fabric to make little scripture totes for the kiddos.

Inside the little bags the  presidency included the 13 articles of faith cards on a ring and a little Book of Mormon. My sister Crystal showed me the site and gave me the idea to have them printed on photo paper at our local Sam's club so they kids can have their own set. 

 It has given me much pleasure to see the kids tote their bags to church each Sunday. I've been amazed at how popular they are with the boys! They LOVE them-who whould've thought?

For the bags I used the tutorial at P.S I quilt . This is a great project for using up scraps of materials and I loved the way she shows you to sew once all the way around to secure the binding and then top stitch everything all down- super SIMPLE and cute!

Sommer's Secret: I ommitted the batting and excluded the quilting portion since the bags were so little and don't need much stability.

I love how each one came out unique with it's own personality. 

Sommer's Secret: I didn't really worry about the bag sizes so they came out all different depending on the piece of fabric I had to work with- they just needed to be big enough to fit the little book of mormon.



Sommer's Secret: I used coordinating ribbon, premade bias tape and strips of fabric for  the binding around and handles.  I liked using the ribbon the best since there was lots less prep work with no need to have to iron the raw edge before sewing.

It was also easy to use strips of fabric NOT cut on the bias since there really wasn't a need for the bias stretch. But the premade Bias binding was easy to use as it is pre-pressed.

Sommer's Secret: I had to sew together lots of small pieces for some of the bags which actually ended up being a little more sturdy than the others.



My all time favorite feature has got to be polka dots. They are just SO FUN! My favorite bags are the ones that have a handle made out of the same fabric as the bag, which definately took a little more time. If I had a little more time I think pockets on the fronts and cute button embelishments would have been AWESOME! 

Sommer's Secret: For the boy bags I picked up some woven nylon in black and white for a more plain handle. This also made it super easy.

      

I am so glad I've found a useful home for these left over scraps.....now they have THEIR time to shine!