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Reversible Tote Bag

The Contemporary Handmade Alliance (a fantastic Australian contemporary crafting community) recently hosted a craft swap, which I thought would be fun to give a go. It’s my first craft swap, and the first time I’ve made something for a complete stranger – I was really nervous, and my perfect-induced craft paralysis made an appearance, but I was committed so I had to go on…

One of the rules of the craft swap was that it had to be for the person and not their kids, which presented me with a bit of a challenge. In this environmentally-aware age, I thought you can’t have too many reusable shopping  bags. To make things difficult for myself, I also decided it had to be reversible. I came across this tutorial on Crafster, and thought it was just the thing.

I then hunted through my stash for the right fabrics – it was a great project to use up some of the leftover material from the curtains I’ve made and leftover from a Buttercup bag (ok, I had more leftover fabric than I actually used for that bag). Here’s how it turned out:

And here are the lovely gifts I received in return, from Steph from MooBear Designs (she makes adorable re-fashioned kids clothes, based on her daughter’s drawings):

The purse was made with a doily that was her Grandmother’s and the flower has a pin attached. I’m going to use it was a brooch on my denim jacket. It was so nice receiving a little gift like this in the mail. Looks like I may become an avid craft-swapper!

7 Comments

  1. What a fun idea! I love the reusable bags you made. So crafty of you. And the gifts you received are also so cute, I especially love the flower pin.

  2. I’m hestitant to participate in swaps too but I’m glad yours turned out so nicely. Lovely totebag you made and lovely little clutch you received too. The flower pin is cute. I can definitely see wearing that on a denim jacket.

    visiting from SITS

  3. I love your tote bags, they look good and strong! I will have to make some myself, I think – my Coles bags are starting to get holes in them!

    Craft swaps seem like such fun – I’d really like to get involved in one when I can get on top of things. I really like the idea of a quilt block swap.

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