Pinterest Made Me Do It

One of my family’s traditions for Valentine’s Day growing up was to make home-made Valentine‘s for every member of the family.  For weeks before Valentine’s Day there would be a spot set up in the house with stickers, construction paper, lace doilies, etc. for us to create our little poems and crafty notes for our family.  Then on V-Day morning we would have a sit down breakfast with coffee cake, eggs and bacon, and we would share our Valentine’s with everyone.  And while my brothers and I have been sporadic in keeping up with the tradition, I wanted my niece to have her own home-made valentine from me!

And so a free weekend, my new embroidery machine and pinterest’s never-ending taunt of projects made me decide to try my hand at a home-made bag valentine that I had seen.

I don’t have a true tutorial for you because this project is so similar to one of my favorite’s that I did for my wedding and I did an in depth tutorial here: DIY Makeup Bag. And if you follow the pinterest link above for my inspiration she has a great tutorial as well!

I didn’t line this bag since I used some already stiff canvas material, and I didn’t do the box corners to make it stand up because I wanted my niece to be able to put cards into it.  But I started out with my four pieces and a zipper.  I had already appliqued a heart onto the front of my bag using my new embroidery machine.  I’m still learning to navigate how to use it, but I’m pretty pleased with the results so far!! (once I get a little better I’ll post about how to use it)

And when it was done, it looked like this:

I love the way it turned out! And I love having actually done something with my Pinterest board besides just browsing! Has Pinterest inspired any of you to get crafty lately?