a little linen coin purse

After nearly 13 years using the same trusty black leather Fossil wallet, I recently decided I was ready for a change.  I snagged an adorable fabric wallet made by a friend of mine, but it didn't have a zippered compartment for my coins. 

 

This, of course, necessitated the creation of a coin purse.  I'm not sure how I came to settle on the design that I did, but after making the decision that I wanted some pretty french knots to adorn my new purse, I chose a graduating assortment of yellow embroidery floss and a scrap of grey linen from my stash.  This was the perfect in-front-of-the-tv project and took me several hours to complete.

I started with the darkest yellow and created a cluster of french knots on my linen.  From there I chose ever lighter shades and just made my way out, scattering the colors a little as I went so there would be no hard lines as they blended together.

I picked up a coin purse frame at Joann, and after checking out a few online tutorials for making these little bags, I cut out my pieces and sewed them together.  Assembling the purse and the frame was a little tricky, but I managed. 

 

The holes along the edge of the frame are so you can sew your purse in, but I chose not to and just used glue instead.  The inside edges are a little sloppy, but I don't care.  ;)

My coins now have a safe, cute home, and that makes me happy.

Tutorial: Coffee filter flowers

 

Before we get started, I just want to say that I most certainly did NOT invent this method of making paper flowers.  I came across a few tutorials on the web which produced beautiful results.  But many of them were either too time consuming or too tedious, or both.  So in the end I came up with my own method that used the basics of these other tutorials and cut out what I felt were unnecessary steps.

 

  If you know me at all, you know that I'm impatient and am always looking for the fastest way to get a project done.  Hopefully you'll find this tutorial easy to follow and results in fantastic paper peonies!

 

 

 

 

 

A note about dyeing the flowers:

For my "dye" I used regular old craft paint, watered way down and mixed really well.  It worked wonderfully.  You could also experiment with food coloring.  I used food coloring for my yellow simply because I wanted to see how it looked and it worked really well also.

 

I haven't tried this yet, but I think "double dipping" the flowers would look pretty neat, too.  Dye them one color, allow them to dry, then dip just the very tips into a darker shade to add more depth.  Could be cool!