a sew-ey tale

nce upon a time, in a land far, far away, there lived a princess. her name was shan..er...ella. yes, shanerella. she was beautiful, and kind, and thin, and tall, and had legs that went for miles, and a beautiful wardrobe...and...well, it's my story alright?

anyway, our fair princess went to the market one day (because she was also very humble and did all her own shopping even though she was a princess) where she saw an adorable bag.

and the princess thought, "i can totally make that myself. you know, on my spinning wheel."

so the princess went home, and documented all the steps to making her super royal princess bag on her royal camera. she took royally awesome pictures of the cutting, the sewing, the measuring...

and then! the princess had an...uhhh...evil stepmother! who dipped the royal SD card in POISON! and so all the photos were lost.

and so, even though princess shanerella had her lovely royal purse for shlepping around all her royal...stuff, she never posted anything on her blog.

and the kingdom was sad.

but wait! the princess had married the handsome prince charming. and he found her so irresistable that it wasn't long before another royal baby was on the way.

and thus the princess found herself spending much of her time at the porcelain throne, instead of the royal throne. and she was in need of something to post on her royal blog.

so she decided, even without step by step photos, she would put up pictures of her bag. because she still likes it.

and they all lived happily ever after.

i saw a bag with this circle design at ross. (and i've since seen it in a lot more places) it was one of those things where you IMMEDIATELY come home and start sewing--regardless of whatever else you had planned to do for the rest of the day.

the outside is made of a light yellow leather. the inside fabric is a fairly thick upholstery weight. i stole the rings for the strap from an old purse i had laying around.

there are definitely things i would change if i were to make another one (like adding some inside pockets to keep it more organized), but it's served me well. (even when baby bear dumped a container of tomato sauce from her breadsticks at target in it. true story.)

and the funniest thing was a little while later i found this post about a bag becky had gotten for herself on a trip to finland! the similarity is so weird! i definitely like her handles better, but like i said--mine was very spur of the moment!

i cut soooo many of these leather circles! a punch would have been nice...but alas (sorry, still in princess mode).

and this was my prince charming hubby's idea:

a little hidden birdy. kind of a hide and seek.
this idea is something i would like to play with more--different simple shapes hidden under different circles. so from the outside it's a stylish bag for mom, but it's also a little interactive game for the kiddos.

you wouldn't believe how long just this one hidden item keeps baby bear amused. imagine if there were 10 or 15 little things under different circles?!!?
what do you think?