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Saturday, September 20, 2008

A new hobby



I've been bored lately. I'm so sick of TV-there's nothing on anymore and feels like such a waste of time. Jon is very busy lately with Toastmasters (he's an assistant area governor now) and his BCIT classes and homework, and the kids are off doing their own thing most of the time so I often have time on my hands.
I was browsing the internet, looking for something crafty I could do. I wanted to make something useful and I like the idea of using recycled materials. I found this pattern for a tote-bag made out of foil drink pouches. Apparently these little bags cannot be recycled for the materials, although they are returnable for deposit (you pay $0.5 deposit when you buy them) I decided to give it a whirl. I bought a couple of boxes of these drinks, tried to get the kids to drink them, but ended up pouring about 10 of them into a jug in the fridge because I wanted to get started.
I was working the last couple of nights, so while I was planning the project, I posted a message up on Craigslist under 'wanted', looking for these pouches and offering to pay $0.15 each for them. I found another ad where a woman in Delta was asking for returnable containers to help her son raise money for a hockey trip to New York. I emailed her and offered to pay her $0.15 each for any drink pouches they collected. Well, to my surprise she emailed me the next day (after a bottle drive) and said she had 200 POUCHES waiting for me!! I hadn't even made ONE project yet at that point! So, I picked up the pouches and got started last night. I should mention how much recycled drink containers stink before they are cleaned...yuck, until I get them all washed, the garage smells awful.
The worst part of the process is washing and drying the little pouches and trying to get the goo off the front (where the straw is stuck on) I had some 'sticky out' solution and that really helped.
So, this is the tote bag I made! It's Blue Raspberry on one side and Tropical Fruit (teal green) on the other, with recyled denim (Ally's old jeans) around the sides. I'm so proud of myself because I'm not much of a seamstress...I actually failed Textiles in grade 9 :-) (but that's just 'cos I didn't want to make a 'dumb' tailored shirt so I dug my heels in and the teacher failed me... yes, I was a very stubborn teenager!
Alison (my 18 year old daughter who took sewing at school up till grade 12) helped me set up the machine and showed me how it worked. (thank you Ally!) I made her this little lined make up pouch out of a chocolate bar package. I think it's a bit too small for all her stuff, but she loves it anyway. She was a little upset when she saw I had used one of her baby pillowcases for the lining though. What do you think of the pencil case? I still have to get a hole-punch to make the holes for it to go into a binder.
These are all my first tries, so there were a few mistakes. I also made a little change purse out of a Mr Noodles package (which Ally also claimed!) ...but I really messed up on the lining...oh well, it was just a tester. This was really fun! I may just build up a stock and see if I can sell them at craft fairs. Anybody have thoughts about how much I should/could charge?

1 comment:

Angel said...

Hey, those are really cool!
let me know when you figure out how much you will charge :)