DIY | How To Make An I-Spy Bag {Picture Tutorial}

Last year I finally bit the bullet and attempted my first I-Spy Bag. It was just a tiny little sampler I made up, but my daughter LOVED it...!! I had all intentions of making mass amounts of these to add to my stock but I havent got around to doing so as of yet. This is partly due to the lack of little nic nacs to find to put into them. I brought a mass amount of Christmas Crackers on Clearance last year at Christmas time to get some things to put into them, but they still arent enough variety for my liking. Trying to find sources in New Zealand is hard!!! Without having to buy in from overseas I do know that you can get them on Etsy - a few names to look under crackalakin - AnniesMarket - HighPie (this is one of my faves).

Anyway, I had an order for one last year and I have just had another one come in, with that I have made my daughter a larger one to the original little sampler I made. We took them with us on our first plane ride 3 months ago, and they were a hit with the children of a friend I had been staying with at the time too. I have noticed some people use Rice or Beans in these, however because I make these to sell and they are such great things to take on long trips be it by air, land or sea etc they pose a risk when crossing international boarders through customs. My lovely next door neighbour works for MAF and I know that whilst domestically these are fine on planes however going on international flights in and out of New Zealand they arent allowed over if they contain food products like Legumes. So for mine I use the plastic toy pellets used for in toy bears etc.

This is a tutorial to show you how easy they are too make. Hopefully!! Any questions you may have feel free to ask.

You will need:

• Fabric
• Ribbon (optional)
• Clear Plastic Vinyl
• Plastic Toy Pellets
• Little Nic Nacs/Trinkets/Charms etc
• Sewing Machine and Thread
• Scissors and/or Rotary Blade
• Ruler
• Pen or Taylor's Chalk/Marker
• Cutting Board
• Key Ring/Split Ring
• Laminating Pouches and Machine
• Printer and Photo paper
• Hole Punch

I am making this approx 6-7in in size.

First you want to cut out ONE 8x8in square, TWO strips measuring 8inx2.5in and TWO strips measuring 5inx2.5in. (I cut mine just a little under!!).

Next cut a 5x5in square of Clear Vinyl. You can by this vinyl from your local fabric or craft store by the meter otherwise up-cycle the packaging from bedding etc..! 

Sew the 5x2.5in strips to the top and bottom of the vinyl square.

Sew the 8x2.5in strips to the opposite sides of the vinyl square. 

Once this is all completed you can top sew around the edge of the vinyl window to help keep the seams sitting down nice and flat (I didnt with looking back now that it is all completed, packaged up ready to be sent out!)

Line your base up with the top piece with the window in it and sew around the  edges, remember to leave a gap for turning and filling.

Trim the edges of excess fabric if you have any (I cut some of my strips a little too short as you can see some Im a little wonky!!!).

Cut the corners, not too close to the stitching though.  This gives them a nice clean and not so bulky corner when you turn it right side out.

Once turnt out the correct way, top stitch close to the edge to give it a nice finish. This is optional!

These are the toy pallets I use in mine. You can find these at your local craft store in the toy making area usually.

I like to use a funnel to fill my bags with. Fill it approx half to three quarters  full, you dont want it to be too bulky otherwise you wont be able to move things around and find the hidden treasures.

Next pick out the goodies for inside, now is a good time to take a photo of them, I like to put mine on a sheet of white paper to do this. You could get creative with this process and write up a list of things to find not just the main items in there, some of the things we like to do with one of the ones I made for my daughter when we were looking at it is finding how many Yellow items there are, how many red...how many square or round... how many cars, insects...how many wooden, metal etc..

Put you goodies into the bag, insert a loop out of ribbon or matching fabric into the opening and triple stitch it closed. 

Print your photo and/or lists out either at home or at a photo center, laminate them either using a machine or you can get self adhesive pockets like these here.

Punch a hole in the corner and thread them all onto the key ring then attach this to the loop on the bag.

Your I-Spy Bag is now complete!

Cloth Book Panel - Assembly Tutorial

Its no secret that I LOVE Cloth Book Panels. When I was a child I had a cloth book that my mum must of brought from somewhere, its was rather small but I use to love looking in it, in fact I still have it somewhere around!

12yrs ago when my sister was pregnant with my eldest niece Meggan I remember going to Spotlight and helping to make her items for her nursery, Im not sure how my sister came up with the theme of Noah's Arc but we just went along with it. I discovered Blue Jean Teddy and all these amazing panels of different things.... and there were some Book Panels. So my first taste of them were back then. Likewise in 2005 when my sister had my eldest nephew Michael I remember getting more book panels and making books for him, it was part of his first Christmas Present (he was born on Christmas Night, only just!!).

I however didnt make any for my youngest nephew and niece. BUT when it came to my daughter Amelia's first Christmas in 2011, I found some cloth book panels again and made them up for her. I actually had one stashed away for some time it turnt out, Im not sure why; I thought it might of been for my eldest nephew but he already had this book (I do have one of his books which sadly is badly damaged and I have never been able to track down a replacement one of this panel). I am slightly addicted to these panels, BUT as with all my addictions I have such good control over them due to finances. Believe me if money wasnt a factor I would buy them up large! 

I use to shove them on my watchlist on Trade Me, but I just couldnt afford to get them - they are sort of hard to find on there now I have noticed. I often see them at Spotlight, and I wait patiently for them to come on clearance or at least on sale (be it a storewide Fabric sale, Nursery Fabric Sale,  Quilting Fabric Sale etc or if I have a discount voucher). Today I went into Spotlight to window shop, I actually had plans to find some laminated cotton to make an art smock for Amelia instead I walked out with FOUR panels I found all on clearance, two of which I had never seen before, one of which, the Animals Around The World one I had been eying up since 2011 when I was pregnant this range has a globe planel as well and the Kiwiana for the past couple of years now I think, I have two Kiwiana themed ones already. 

I love these cloth books for a few reasons, for starters my beautiful daughter can not rip the pages, she is not able to chew on them or bend the pages back to snap them and break the spine (as per our board books), she can not bite hole in them (as per our plastic bath books) and lastly they can be thrown into the wash if need be! 

So I thought I would do a little tutorial on how you make these panels up. 

You will need:

• Cloth Book Panel/s
• Wadding (polyester, bamboo what ever tickles your fancy)
  OR
• Iron on Interfacing
• Cotton Thread
• Sewing Machine
• Iron (if using interfacing)
• Needle and Pins
• Scissors and/or Rotary Cutter
• Cutting Board

Most of these panels always come with directions somewhere on how to make it so do not fret too much. You can make these up in either thick or thin or a mixture. I dont have enough wadding so I am only padding the cover for mine and leaving the pages thin. In my daughter's stash of these books they all vary in thickness. 

If this is your first time making these I would recommend you cut each page spread out separately, over time you can match them up and cut them out laid on top of it each (having said that I have had my fabric move and ended up cutting my pages a bit wonky - note the purple dragon one in my daughter's stash..!!!). You will find your panel will have marks on where to cut, but some panels dont always have these marks as you can see. This sometimes makes it a bit tricky as to where to cut and then later sew. I like to try and get my pieces all evenly spaced out where possible in this case. 

What I didnt do at the start is iron my panel first to make it all nice and flat, depending how your panel arrived and was packaged you may have some creases. I dont wash mine before cutting, Im not sure how they will turn out if doing so, I have read that sometimes they warp a wee bit, out of pure laziness I dont. For the purpose of this tutorial, my book panel featuring here was off the round cardboard tube type bolt and wasnt folded in anyway in the store racks. 

Once you have cut your pieces out, you need to iron some interfacing onto the wrong (dull) sides of the pages, make sure you put the shine dotty looking side down (I couldnt get this captured fully sorry), but this is the "glue" that when heated will melt and stick to the fabric. I didnt put any interfacing on my front cover pages though as I am putting wadding in. Your interfacing will go on every panel piece (except your covers if your doing it how I am).

Cut your wadding to size, likewise if you were making your book thick then you wouldnt need to use the interfacing and just cut wadding to size :) If you are using wadding, you only need to cut one per set of pages to go into the middle of it.

Team up your pages to their correct pair with right (bright) sides facing each other, if your panel came with directions it sometimes says on there what panel goes with what. If using wadding you only need place this onto one of the wrong sides. Pin in place if you feel the need to. Then sew around the edges, I am really sorry but I am no good with measurements in this area but I usually sew with at least 1/4" seam allowance depending how big the page border is. Make sure you leave an opening for turning and reinforce stitch your stop and start point. 

Once all sewn up, trim your corners, this gives them a nice clean and less bulky corner once turnt out. Iron your pages again if you wish to, now from here you can either hand stitch the opening closed, machine stitch it a couple of times or do a complete top stitch around the edges of your pages, its really up to you in my honest opinion, I have tried all of these mothods on the books in my daughter's stash.

Next you want to stack all your pages together, making sure they are in the correct order and then sew down the middle of your pages to create the spine, I like to do this two or three times to give it extra strength over a single stitch. Sometimes my machine get a little hormonal and grumpy esp if I am doing these as thick books and have some thicker wadding in them. Alternatively you could hand stitch through all the pages.

Close your book up and it is now completed and ready to be enjoyed and read!

Looking for places to get Book Panels from? Try some of the following places:

• Fabric.com
• Spotlight - Both Australia and New Zealand
• Joannes
• KiwiThreadz
• Ebay - try different countries too! This is to the main US one. 
• Etsy
• Trade Me

Lastly GOOGLE either "cloth book panels" or "soft book panels" and you will be linked up to many different places including local fabric, sewing, craft and quilting stores.