Hide & Seek, Baby

Long before my son was born, I found a pattern for a Hide & Seek Bag.  I bought it on the spot and put it away for someday...  

When he was about 18 months old I got serious about completing the project for him.  This is the result:

 

He has loved it ever since.  Even my 10-year-old nieces who visited just after I'd finished it couldn't get enough of finding the hidden objects.  It was then that I realized that one of the items on the list hadn't made it into the pouch.  I opened the seam and popped it in at the same time I emptied some of the hiding beads.  I had made the bag too full that made it difficult for the items to move freely, but we will discuss that more later.  

Fast forward to now.  My daughter has been asking for her own "Seek Bag."  I had all of the materials (or so I thought) and was set to complete this project last month.  I ended up having to find a few last-minute items.  Oops!  I guess I wasn't as prepared as I thought I was.  Then life took over illnesses and potty training took center stage which brings us to MARCH, and finally the "Seek Bag" is complete.  

Here are the materials that you will need to make your own Hide & Seek Bag:

• Clear vinyl
• Colored/textured vinyl
• Canvas (any style and color you like)
• Two-sided fusible webbing
• Ribbon
• One jump ring
• Beads for filling (found in the floral section)
• Small toys
• Laminated cardstock for list tag

Most of the material was found in the remnant bins.

First, you need to gather the toys to go into the bag.  If you have older children this won't be as challenging a task.  You can always find small toys, puzzle pieces, fashion doll shoes, etc., but if you don't, there are lots of choices.  I used a lot of nifty buttons, scrapbooking embellishments,  and small party favors.  Update:  Do not use money inside the bag.  It is just too heavy.  I put coins inside the first bag that I made and I never saw them again. 

 

Keep a list of the items as you acquire them.  

You will forget what you have as you are collecting so it is a good idea to review what you have from time to time.  Also, often there will be duplicate items in one bag.  Start a list for another collection while you are working.  I had three collections going at once.  Using small toys means that you need more to fill the bag.  I used 75 toys per bag, but if you used larger toys (such as the ones that come in  a tube with a globe on top) you will need fewer items.  

As I said before, I had a pattern for this project, but I lent it to a friend and she lent it to a friend and... Well, it's gone.  I had to reconstruct the pattern from memory.  I used a piece of printer paper, a ruler, a compass, and a black marker.  

 

I measured my son's bag to get an approximate size for the pattern.  I drew a line and used the compass to create the curve.  I traced the drawing with marker so that I could see the lines.  You don't have to be extremely precise with your tracing.  My circle has a diameter of 9 1/2" so I could only fit a half circle on my sheet of paper, hence the fold line.  

You need four kinds of fabric to complete this project:

I found my fabrics in the remnants bin at the local fabric stores.  

• Clear vinyl (I used 16 gauge)
• heavy canvas
• double-sided fusible webbing
• colored/ textured vinyl

 

Place your pattern on the fold and cut once circle out of each material.  Again you do not need to be extremely precise.  My telephone worked beautifully as a weight so I did not have to use pins.

Here is where I deviated from the pattern.  The original pattern called for just canvas.  I wanted something colorful and easy to clean at the same time.  Using the canvas on the inside of the bag gives the project color while the vinyl on the outside makes cleaning up sticky fingerprints a snap. 

Next step to the ironing board.Iron the back pieces together in this order:

1.  Iron the webbing (paper side up) to the wrong side of the canvas.

  

     

2.  Carefully peel off the paper backing while everything is still warm.  

 

    

 3.  Attach the canvas to the wrong side of the colored vinyl.  

Yes, this is a  different color of canvas.

 Prepare the holder for the list tag.  I used two contrasting ribbons and a jump ring.

Line up the front and the back of the bag, inserting the list tag holder, and pin leaving a 2" space for filling.

You don't have to be very exact because you will be trimming the excess material later.  

Chose a long tight zig zag stitch on your sewing machine.  I sewed over the seam four times to ensure good coverage and a tight seal. I left about 1/4" of seam allowance as I sewed.  

Now comes the fun part!  

First, fill your bag with your toys.  COUNT the toys to make sure you have everything on your list.  Your bag should be about 1/3 full. 

Next, fill your bag with beads.  In this photo I used larger beads, I was not pleased with them so I opened the finished seam, dumped everything out and refilled the bags using smaller beads like these:  

The bag should be just over half full of beads and toys.  

Finally, pin up the hole and sew it closed.  Keep the filling well out of the way as you sew.  

Trim the seams close to the stitching.  I needed a very sharply pointed pair of scissors to trim around the list tag holder, but regular sewing scissors worked fine for the rest of the circle.  

The last step is to attach the list tag. 

Before you begin, type the list of toys and print it out on cardstock.  I typed my lists in three columns and made a front and a back.  Then I cut them out and glued them to some cute matching paper.  I laminated the lists using 10 mil. lamination.  This will make the list about as thick as a credit card.  

The corner rounder did not cut through the lamination, but you need to round the corners by hand or else they will be SHARP!

Punch a hole for the jump ring and check the placement. 

Thread the list tag onto the jump ring.

Voila!  A Hide & Seek Bag that your child will LOVE!  My daughter carried hers around for the rest of the day and kept telling her dad, "Mommy made this!"  

The small beads do a great job of disguising the toys.

"Mommy made this!"

As you can tell from the pictures, I made two bags at the same time. Soooo...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANDERSON! 

This is also an excellent gift for a preschool or kindergarten teacher!  I hope you enjoy your bag!

I would love it if you became a follower of my blog.  You can also find me HERE on Facebook and HERE on Pinterest!

If you enjoyed this sewing post you might enjoy these other posts from Greetings From the Asylum:

Lined Travel Backpack, Ruffle-Bum Onesies, and Part One of my Yo-Yo Coverlet.

Thanks for visiting!

A Little Side Note...

In the lobby of the office building where my husband works is a wonderful deli run by Iraqi immigrants.  In addition to their standard deli fare, they feature authentic middle eastern choices on their menu.  My husband especially likes their tabouleh and tomato feta salad.  He mentioned the tomato feta salad so frequently that I wanted to try it for myself.  Since I don't make the 25-mile one way trip that often, it was up to me to make it happen in my own kitchen.  My husband said that while this is not an exact replica, it is a good adaptation of the original favorite.  Here is my version of Tomato Feta Salad...

Here are the ingredients that you need.

All of these items are easily found in your local grocery store.

1 bag of romaine lettuce

1 package of cherry tomatoes (You can use a pint of grape tomatoes too.)

1 8oz  container of  feta cheese (crumbled)

18 - 24 kalamata olives (pitted)

juice of 1/2 lemon

salt & pepper

Now we combine!

Cut the washed cherry (or grape) tomatoes in half and add them to a large bowl. You will need the space to add the lettuce later.   

Add the olives, feta, and the lemon juice.

I had a picture of one of my favorite kitchen gadgets (a wooden lemon reamer) in use, but I deleted it by accident.  I do want digress for a moment and take this opportunity to sing its praises.  No kitchen should be without one.  I had a metal reamer for years, but I wasn't really happy with the results so I purchased one like this. (This reamer is on sale at Amazon.com for $4.99.)  A wooden reamer is far superior to a metal one because it gets into the tiny corners of your citrus fruit and wrings every last drop of juice out of the rind.  My metal reamer also gave my hands unsightly grayish smudges as I used it.  That always made me leery of what it was adding to the juice.  I have used my reamer on citrus fruits as small as a lime all the way up to grapefruit.  It worked wonderfully on each of them. 

 Okay, back to the task at hand...

Add salt and pepper to taste.  Stir to combine.

Add 1/2 to a full bag of lettuce.  Gently fold the lettuce into the tomato cheese mixture.

Enjoy!

 

This side dish would be delicious with a large variety of dishes.  It would be the perfect crunchy addition to savory gyros.  Add some sliced grilled chicken breasts to make it a main dish.  Serve it with spiced lentils to keep the meal vegetarian.  I paired it with poached mahi mahi and rice pilaf.  The possibilities are endless but always delicious!

If you would like a printable version of this recipe, send me a comment with your e-mail address since I have not yet figured out how to embed a PDF here in the text of the blog.

I am linking up to these and other great parties!  To see a complete list, click on my Linky Party page!

I would love it if you became a follower of my blog.  You can also find me HERE on Facebook and HERE on Pinterest!

I have other cooking posts here at Greetings From the Asylum.  Here are a few you might enjoy:  Hard-Baked Eggs, Hamburger Cookies, and Cranberry Bread from the book Cranberry Thanksgiving.  

Thanks for Visiting!

Feelin' SPICY!

I dare you to find something in this mess!

Look at this mess!  My spice cupboard is a massive hodge-podge of if disorganization, and today I am going to reclaim the tidy arrangement that it once gloried in!

First, everything had to come out of that cabinet.  I didn't know much of what I had in there, and I couldn't find the things that I knew were tucked away somewhere.

1/6 of the contents of the cabinet

This picture is only of the jars that were in the left half of the bottom shelf.  They completely filled the island in my kitchen and I still had 5/6 of the cabinet left to empty.  By the time I'd emptied everything, there was not a bit of kitchen counter space to be had anywhere in the kitchen.  Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of that mess. 

While the cabinet was empty I decided to change the shelf paper.  After all, I'd purchased new shelf paper five years ago when my son was a newborn, and in true never-finish-a-project form, I'd never finished!  (I did the laundry room cupboards and stopped there.)

Truth be told if I knew what an icky mess it would be to replace the shelf paper before I began, I would have left that an unfinished project forever.

New "marble" shelf paper

The new shelf paper went in easily on the bottom portion of the cabinet.  "Easy," I thought to myself as I reached for the second shelf to remove it.   As I was maneuvering it out of the cabinet, I bumped one of the shelf brackets that supported the shelf in the cabinet.  You  bet, it broke.  The tiny pin that was inserted into the support hole had snapped off and was now permanently stuck in the hole.  That meant that I now had to move all of the other supports to have a well-supported shelf.  As I moved them, other supports simply broke off in my hands.  Sheesh!  What a pain!

Worthless broken shelf supports.

After a trip to Lowe's, I had lots of shiny new supports that were just waiting to be eased into the new holes.  Did I say eased?  Ha ha ha ha ha...  Oh sorry.  The pins on the new supports had a larger diameter than the holes they were to inhabit.  I had to enlarge the new holes with a larger drill bit and JAM them into place further with a rubber mallet.  I was sweating!  

Shiny new shelf support bracket!

I had the whole top shelf organized when I realized that I'd neglected to change the shelf paper.  I took everything back off the shelf and did the papering.  (Naturally, I broke more shelf supports in the process.)  Here are some close-ups of how the shelf looks now!

 Here is the middle shelf...

 

 This is the lower shelf...

I maximized the space on this lower shelf by using plastic coated wire shelves that I got at Lowe's while I was buying shelf supports.  I also got the baskets with the round holes as well.  The three-tiered spice rack was open on the bottom and needed a solid surface to sit on because the wire shelf would not support it.  This was my solution.  

I used some of the left-over chipboard from the Kid's Document Keeper project.  It was the perfect size!  Yea! Recycling!

Here is the whole cabinet for full effect.

 

You will see a spreadsheet hanging on the left cabinet door.  I typed up an inventory list of everything that is in this cabinet and where it can be found.  This way I can avoid buying things at the grocery store that I already have in abundance...

Cumin anyone?

I live in the Southwest, but this is ridiculous!

Or coriander?

Bay leaves maybe?

Mustard seeds?

Now in defense of this one, I have a recipe to make your own mustard that I have been meaning to try.  Now that I have found my supplies, I should get on it.  

Here is a close up of the inventory spreadsheet.  I printed it double-sided, but it still took three sheets of paper.  It is attached to the door with a Command hook so it isn't permanent. 

Here are some of my favorite gadgets that I have stored in this cabinet: 

Nutmeg grinder

spice grinder

It is really a small coffee grinder, but since I never touch the stuff, it is awesome for grinding spices (like whole coriander seeds).

food chopper

This is made by The Pampered Chef.  I love it!  I use it mostly to chop chocolate. 

This is a meat thermometer attached to a timer.  The probe goes into your meat (rib roast for example) while the rest of the unit sits outside the oven.  You can set the timer to go off when the desired internal temperature of the meat is reached.  That way you can be sure to not overcook your meat.  I use it to make great pork chops and chicken breasts!

 

One last look, ahhhh...

This was a huge job that took days to complete not the hours that I was expecting.  I have loved the end result.  I know just where to go to find everything I need.  I just need to figure out what to do with all of that cumin.

The craft closet is my next organizational undertaking...Yikes!

I am linking up to Alphabe-Thursday! 

I would love it if you became a follower of this blog.  You can find me HERE on Facebook and HERE on Pinterest.  

If you found this post useful, you might enjoy these other organizational posts:  Fun In A File Folder, I Am So Hooked Up! and Kid's Document Keeper.  

Thanks for visiting!