I did a sewing project without Chica even in my house or hastily dialed on my phone! Okay, before you get too impressed, this is rustic sewing. It didn’t involve any hems or really need straight lines, but still, it was sewing all by myself! I guess those Sewing 101 lessons really paid off. What is this great project, you ask? Well, I decided to make a bag to hold wedding programs. As you know, my sister-in-law is getting married in October, so we are helping her out with her wedding crafts. Chica came up with a DIY wedding invitation design that the bride loves, and we are working on a coordinating wedding program template as well. All that said, let’s see what I did!

Since this is an outdoor wedding in October, I thought it would be fun to go a little rustic. I chose some burlap for my fabric. Burlap actually comes in a wide range of colors… I had no idea! I cut my fabric to be a little larger than the programs would be. Since I am putting the cart before the proverbial horse here, I just made up a program size since we haven’t finalized that yet. This is just a prototype for the bride to see.

Next, I took a length of ribbon and pinned it between my two pieces of fabric for the handle. I sewed up the sides and bottom with red thread because I wanted to see the contrast of color.

Now it was time to have fun decorating the bag. For this, I used rubber stamps and black ink.

The ink was a little faint for my liking on the letters that spelled out programs so I took a black Sharpie and went over the letters to darken them up.

I showed the bride and she loves the idea of hanging the programs on the chair back at the beginning of each row! It will be super easy to make this simple pouch in mass as well.