Men's shirt to handbag - an upcycle tutorial

Once again, I'm working my way through my stash of clothes to be upcycled. I have a few men's shirts in that stash, so set to work on one of those and created this bag!

Here's how you can make your own cute bag from a men's shirt:

You will need:

A men's shirt

Fabric for the bag lining and trim

Two round wooden handles

First cut a rectangle from the centre of the shirt - through both layers, the size you'd like your bag to be.

Mine was 42 x 34cm (16.5 x 12.5")

Cut 2 rectangles of your inner fabric the same size:

For both the inner and outer bag fabric, pin the rectangles right sides together along three sides. Leave what will be the top opening of the bag open.

Stitch around all 3 sides.

To 'box the corners out', Put your hand inside the 'pocket' you just made and flatten one corner out like this

Stitch across that corner about 5cm (2") in from the tip:

Then cut off the point beyond the stitching.

Repeat this for both bottom corners of the inside an outside bag pieces. Then you should have this:

Now you need to gather the tops of both pieces. To do this, run a line of stitching around the top of each piece around 5cm (2") in from the top. I use an elastic band to mark where this is on my sewing machine! You stitches should be on the longest setting for this:

It's probably best to stitch two separate lines one on either side of the bag:

Then pull the threads at each end to 'gather' the tops of the bag pieces - sort of like you were closing a drawstring bag:

One both bags are done, make sure the outer bag has the right sides out, and the inner bag has the right sides facing inwards and put the inside of the bag, in the outer bag:

Adjusting the gather if need be as you go along so that it's even, pin the two pieces together along your line of stitching.

Then stitch through both layers:

Now to make the top rim of the bag.

Fold the top of the outer bag over,

then, fold the inner fabric over the top of that and tuck the raw edge under just past the line of stitching. Go all around the top of the bag doing this, and pin into place.

Then top stitch all the way around.

Now you just have to add the handles.

Cut two rectangles of the inner fabric 

- mine were 15 x 8cm (6 x 3")

Double fold all the short edges of these rectangles over and stitch.

Then for each handle, wrap one of the rectangles around it and tucking the raw edges in, pin together:

Using the zipper foot on your machine so you can get close to the wooden handle, stitch where you have pinned on both handles.

Then pin and stitch the handles to the bag:

And there you have a cute new handbag!

I decorated mine with a simple fabric yoyo with a button in the centre.

For the free downloadable PDF version of this tutorial, click here.

For more ideas on shirt upcycling, take a look at my 

Shirts Upcycling Pinterest Board.

Or you can browse over 600 clothes upcycling projects and add your own to the ongoing linky party here.

And for over 100 of my free sewing tutorials go here.

Sunday Motivation

Shorts Upcycling

This week's clothing item to upcycle is shorts. One of my own favourite upcycles is a bag I made from an old pair of shorts:

Another shorts upcycle of mine was this...

I made a few gifts from one pair of shorts

But for upcycling shorts, all I really found were bags!

Messenger Bag from Cargo Shorts

Witchy Bag from shorts and a top

Another bag from a pair of cargo shorts by The Iowa Expat Wanders:

Jeans shorts bags

Shorts to drawstring bags

Shorts to Funky Soft Backpack

Mini Backpacks from Shorts

So if you have any bright ideas of what to make with shorts other than bags - I'd love to hear them!

I also have pinterest boards for each clothing item, with more ideas  - just a few bags so far on the 

shorts upcycling board

Happy Upcycling !

How posting a recipe changed my whole blogging outlook.

My Lightbulb Moment

Who would have thought that Cheesymite scrolls could have such an impact?

I don't usually post recipes here - in fact I think I've posted maybe 2 in the 3 years I've been blogging. Posting this one was a spur of the moment decision to share a little of my Australian life with my readers.

Doing something a bit different turned out to be a great thing to do. I had some nice comments about the recipe and it really got me thinking.....

What I feel I should do

I feel like this blog is about sewing, upcycling clothes and my blog learning - not about food and recipes.

I've set up my facebook page where I post more about my daily life and other snippets. I've kind of felt like Facebook is the 'social' side of my blog where I share more variety - but the blog itself is more focussed on the sewing, upcycling clothes and blogging.

I read a lot about blogging to try and learn and grow, and one thing that I find being said all the time is that you have to specialise and find your niche. Don't try to do everything, you must choose just one thing to concentrate on.

Now I struggle with this as I have several things I'm interested in and like doing, and enjoy the variety of doing different things, BUT I also want to have a successful blog, so feel like I should specialise more.

Tricky...

Three Blogs, Three Separate Topics

This blog - Creating my way to Success, was my first. It has evolved over the years and is one where  definitely spend most of my time and efforts.

Some of you may know that this is not my only blog. I also have 

one where I write about things I do with my kids, education, fitness and fun. 

That blog is called 

Be Our Best

I have also recently added another new blog to the mix - a Wordpress one this time (the other two are both Blogger). I decided that it was time to learn about Wordpress, took up an offer of free hosting for a year, and since I'm interested in fitness and health and learning lots about that at the moment, it seemed an appropriate topic to use for my new blog.

That blog is called: 

Fit and Healthy Me

Now I always have the problem of what blog to put my time into. Sometimes I feel more like one than the other, and sometimes just have more to write about on one topic than another.

I've tried to find a way to organise my time to cover all three blogs - setting aside different days for each topic, or times of day, but I still haven't managed to work out a way to run three separate blogs to my satisfaction.

My Solution

So what can I do about this dilemma? Am I spreading myself too thin? Should I just stick to blogging about one topic?

NO - because I don't want to do that!

The title of this blog shows how I like to do things 

Creating MY WAY to Success

So what I've decided to do, is to stop thinking of my blogs as three separate things.

I've changed the page buttons on the top of my blog to include one that takes readers to "Be Our Best" and another that takes people to "Fit and Healthy Me". 

All three topics are connected by ME - and this blog is all about how I am Creating my way to Success. That includes what I'm doing with my kids, and my fitness.

It might not sound like a big change - just adding links, but by making them "page links" to me it feels like they are much more a part of a whole rather than separate 'bits'.

I've also decided that having separate Facebook pages for each blog is silly. My main Creating my way to Success Facebook page is all I need, since I'm already sharing a variety of things on there - all I really need to do is think of it as my overall blogging Facebook page and not worry about trying to keep up with so many different places!

It's the way you look at it

It's all about perpective. I haven't changed the fact that I have 3 blogs about 3 different topics. 

Thinking of my 3 blogs together rather than separate, I've got a fresh excitement about them.

I sew, I upcycle, and try to help my kids with their education, fitness and development and I'm also learning to look after my own health and fitness too.

Life is about a balance, and I think I've finally found a way to balance all the things I want to do in mine.

So maybe I'll post more recipes, who knows what else I'll learn or figure out! My blogs will certainly be more intertwined from now on, and I feel like I can share better who I am in doing this. The next few weeks are going to be fun as I explore my blogs from this fresh perspective.

So how about you? Do you try to stick to your blog niche? Or do you blog about lots of different things? Do you have more than one blog - and how do you balance it all?

Sunday Motivation

Upcycling Sweaters

Sweaters, Sweaters, Sweaters - lots of great ideas for upcycling these - let's get right to it!

Gorgeous Owl Softies from Karima's Crafts:

Old Sweater to Pillow

Another Softie - this time Spot Dog by The Life of Riley:

A Sweater refashioned to a cute cardigan from Domestic Deadline:

Or how about this great 

sweater to chair cushion cover from Meijo's Joy 

- that makes a clever use of the arms!

Some cute fluffy kids sweater pants by Folk Haven - basically made from old sweater arms!

Sweater Sleeve Pumpkins from Creative Passage

Or a pair of sweater socks - by Vixen Made:

Then there's this fabulous 

itchy sweater to cute purse tutorial by Ricochet and Away:

And 8 upcycled items from just one sweater by Posed Perfection

So many brilliant ways to upcycle those old sweaters.

For even more ideas - check out my Pinterest board:

Sweater Upcycling

To see ideas for other clothing items - go here for posts item by item!

Happy Upcycling

Yet another duffel bag and a cat.

A couple of months ago I made myself a new duffel bag using my own Personalised Duffel Bag pattern.

I then had to make another one for my elder daughter who tried to claim my new bag for herself.

Then a couple of weeks ago, my younger daughter decided she didn't want to be left out and wanted one too!

I finally got a round to making one for her - with some cute cat fabric she chose.

The cat in the first photo is one that has taken to hanging out with us these holidays. I don't know who he belongs to, but he's enjoying all the attention from the girls, and I must admit he's very cute!

I wonder if he'll continue to come around once the girls are back at school next week..

Have a wonderful weekend, wherever you are in the world.