Little bright projects

What a gloomy year it's been, for the most part. So much cloudiness and so much precipitation. Fall was no exception. In fact, I feel like we got cheated out of fall altogether, and since it's my favorite time of year, that's pretty sad. I got tired of the dark dreary days lately and decided it was time for some bright, colorful sewing projects.

Months ago, I received some fabric samples from one of Jess's good friends who is from Japan. (She's the one, in fact, whose baby I sewed the tiny cowboy boots for.) The fabrics were so beautiful, and I wanted to make something special from them. Whatever I made had to be little, because the pieces were about 10" square. The gloomy weather finally inspired me to get going and sew some of them up, and here's what I made:

If you've been following me long, you'll probably recognize the Triple-Zip Pouch from the tutorial by Debbie Jeske. This is actually the 10th one I've made! (See the others here.) Yes, I love them, and they're so quick and fun to make. And isn't that fabric simply gorgeous? Fortunately the print went all directions, because I had to cut the two top pieces the opposite direction from the main piece in order to make it work. I think I have maybe a half-inch strip left. LOL

Here's more of the beauty on the back side. The photos don't even do it justice. The gold is kind of glittery. I was a little leery about ironing it, but it wasn't a problem at all.

I plan to use it to hold things I'd transfer from one purse to another, to make the switch easier. Since I make a lot of bags (huge understatement there), I do occasionally switch which one I carry, just for fun. The bad part of switching is always transferring all the little stuff, and this pouch will make it a breeze.

Just in case you wondered, that bottom item in the photo above is a fold-up brush. The bristles push down inside, and it folds up like a compact. I got it from Courtney for Christmas last year, and I love it!

The other item I made is something useful that I've needed for a long time. Can you guess what it is?

It's folded, like this:

It's a postage stamp holder!

I've made a couple of them before to use as sticker holders. They're very easy to make, and you can see a little tutorial here. I don't use a lot of stamps these days, but what I do have had been stored in a very raggedy envelope that the post office used to put your purchased stamps in... many years ago. It most definitely needed replacing. So now I have this beautiful little stamp holder from lovely Japanese fabrics - yay! I laminated the fabric with Heat 'n Bond iron-on vinyl, and I used a KAMsnap for closure. Perfect! And now I will think of Jess's friend Megumi every time I use the stamp holder or pouch.

I still have a couple of the fabric samples, so if you know of any cute little projects I could make from them, I'm up for suggestions!