Green Bag Lady: February 2010

Stop Motion. . .

This is non bag related, but so very cool. I love stop motion animations. These are made with photographs put in a sequential order and played quickly. They are easy and fun to make. This list below is a few of my favorites, of course, these took many hours to produce. Enjoy. . .

Her Morning Elegance--Oren Lavie

Savannah College of Art and Design Grad Students

Photography Life Story

Coldplay--Strawberry Swing (sidewalk chalk!)

Enjoy, I hope you are having a good weekend. Come join us for Homecoming at Belmont University and get a bag! Tonight at the Curb Event Center, 4pm! Teresa

How nice. . .

Momfluential recently posted the Green Bag Lady How To Make a Bag video. Thanks! I hope many people are following suit and making bags! Teresa

Oregon Bag!

Wow, time has gone by so quick. Seems like yesterday I was pregnant with my now 6 month old, need I say more? Anyway I was a contest winner Sew Mama Sew Take One Make One and I was so excited to get a Green Bag Lady bag. Well my life is pretty busy and I didn't get the one sewn to give away so I ended up giving my sewn bag to my friend and I kept the one to sew and use it all the time. I will send more pictures of one of my store trips in the future. You have inspired me to use cloth and encourage others to do the same. Thats for all you do, I hope to win a Green Bag Lady bag again so I can keep it. lol

Thanks again, Misty
Albany, Oregon

California Bag!

Hi Teresa,

I am super delinquent in sending this along...A bag lady travel shot...in the Taipei airport on the way back home from India.

Hope all's well with you!
Sheryl

Baking. . .

Adobe Photoshop Cook from Lait Noir on Vimeo.

Speaking of baking sweets. This is great. Those of you Photoshop geeks out there will love it! Teresa

You are welcome. . .Oh, Brooke!

Oh, Brooke posted about getting her Green Bag Lady bag from the Valentine Freebie. Check it out here, and while you are there, wander around the rest of her cute site! Teresa

Oregon Bag Lady! Yay!

Hi Bagette Dad!

I don't have Teresa's e-mail, but I found yours on her blog.

I wanted to share a couple pics of the bags I made using her pattern.

The polka dot one is for a bday present and the mini one is for my 1 yr
old using all leftover scraps in my scrap box. I know that would make
her day.

I will post pics of them in action when I can. :)

Thanks!
Kayla Freitas

Get your creative sewing flowing. . .

Bertina Studio is doing a fun embroidery sewing contest called STASH TO TREASURE CHALLENGE. There are FABULOUS prizes to win! I love to see people brighten their lives with sewing. The last day to enter is April 18. All the info is HERE. Good luck! Teresa

More Sweets. . .

Look what sweet Bakerella sent Little Girl for sharing her Valentine on her site. . .thank you Bakerella, she loves it!

In exchange, we made you a bag! Like it? I don't usually make custom Green Bag Lady bags, but this was sure fun. I used some Amy Butler Fabric from my stash. We hope Bakerella will get a lot of use toting yummy things home from the grocery store!

Enjoy what is left of the weekend. Not much. Off to meet my bagettes and tell stories and laugh and cut fabric and iron labels and eat chocolate . . . I love them. I do! Teresa

How Many?

People have asked me how many bags I have in my own collection. I was curious, so I decided to find out. I found 20+ in the car, but I know there are more around the house holding various items. This does not count the 4 thin ones that I carry rolled up in my purse. . .

Then, there are the produce bags of course, wrinkled from being shoved in the shopping bags, remember, I don't iron. . .

Hubby got a bag for Valentine's Day, made out of one of his shirts that was literally falling apart. The cuffs were hanging on by threads. . .

I hope you are having a good weekend! Teresa

People are Sweet

People are so very sweet. Really they are. I have now put Argentina on my list of places to visit because the people there have GOT to be wonderful. Look what I got in the mail. . .

A lovely package with a note inside and this. . .

and this. . .

all together now. . .

The note read:

Dear Teresa--

As I promised, here are two small gifts for you. I made them with a useless plastic cap from a soda bottle and a useless CD, and small pieces of felt and fabrics that I got from my works. I hope you like them.

Hugs! Adriana

Bernal, Buenos Aires, Argentina

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Um, wow, thank you Adriana! I LOVE them. I will use them and think of you. The cupcake is adorable and the one made from a CD is PERFECT because it is much cuter AND will not roll away like my current tomato pin cushion. HUGS BACK Adirana, fabulous!

Have a good weekend everyone, a few hours left on the freebie below. I will randomly choose winners tomorrow. Teresa

President's Day FREEBIE!

For President's Day and for those of you hopping over from Bakerella, let's do a FREEBIE! I will give away THREE bags to THREE lucky winners made out of fabulous AMY BUTLER fabric pictured above. Amy Butler was kind enough to send us some more fabric and I have been itching to make bags from it! The bags will look something like the ones pictured below from this past post.

To win, please follow the rules below::::::::::

•LEAVE A COMMENT, IN THE COMMENT LEAVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS IN THIS FORMAT: name(at)something(dot)com it is important to spell out dot and at so you don't get spam, if you DO NOT leave an email address, we will not hunt you down to send you a freebie, thanks.

•In the comment tell us your favorite thing about BAKERELLA.

•DEADLINE FOR THIS FREEBIE IS MIDNIGHT (CST) Friday, February 19, 2010.

•We will be giving THREE bags made from Amy Butler fabric to THREE lucky winners. If you already have a bag, you can win one for someone that doesn't. Only one Green Bag Lady bag per person please. Thanks.

•We LOVE comments and FREEBIES so tell all your friends!

Happy day--Teresa

Bag Model, Beth from Eat. Drink. Smile.

COMMENTS CLOSED, WINNERS ARE CLAIRE, ANGELA AND LEESA, CONGRATULATIONS!

Bakerella

I am so HONORED. Little Girl wrote me a Valentine. It was so cute, I had to share it with Bakerella. She put it on her site! Go see. Stay for a while too. This site will give you a sugar high, it is ADORABLE! Teresa

Happy Valentine's Day!

My little sweeties and I made cutout cookies to celebrate today. Not as cute as Bakerella's, but they will do. . .

I call this the calm before the storm. . .

I bought the little coin spoons in Ireland when Big Girl was 2. I led a photo trip there. My mom and younger sister went too. They work great for this!

The storm ensues. . .

The best part. . .

I hope you are having a good day with all your sweethearts! Love, Teresa

Plastic in our oceans. . .starts on land. . .Part I

Photo credit: 5gyres.org

I'm really not sure where to begin with this topic. I have touched on it in past posts here and the end of the post here. The reason I don't know where to start is that this topic is so HUGE and most people know so little about it.

Here is a small amount of information that I will build on in future posts.

The facts:

•Thousands of TONS of plastic exists in our oceans.

•Only about 5% of the plastic produced annually is recycled.

•Plastic, because it floats, makes its way to the ocean through a variety of waterways.

•The plastic is carried from the waterways to the oceans and swept up by the currents where it remains and slowly ends up in one of the gyres. The most studied of these gyres is the North Pacific Gyre, but there are actually 5 gyres.

•A gyre is a massive, slow moving oceanic whirlpool in which plastic trash can accumulate and remain for many, many years until it breaks down into ever smaller particles.

•Marine life mistake this trash for food. Turtles, whales, fish, etc. are eating the shopping bags, bottle caps, and small particles instead of proper nutrients from the ocean.

•Birds, such as the albatross chicks (see photo below) on Midway Island ingest the plastic until their stomach is so full that they die. Their body then decays and the plastic in their stomach floats back into the ocean only to be consumed by yet another bird! Ugh.

The best site to explain all of this is 5 Gyres. It is simple and easy to navigate. 5 Gyres is part of the Algalita Foundation. Algalita is tirelessly studying the gyres and the plastic contained in them. They are also educating the public about plastic usage and proper disposal. This blog is documenting their current trip to the North Pacific Gyre. The waste in this gyre is commonly referred to as a "garbage patch" and is about twice the size of Texas.

What can you do? I ask myself this all the time. First, buy and use less plastic. Don't EVER buy bottled water. Ever. Drink soda out of glass or aluminum. Both of these materials are infinitely recyclable. At the supermarket, if you have a choice between a product packaged in plastic or in metal or glass. Choose metal or glass and recycle it.

Vote with your wallet. If we all stop buying so much plastic, companies will stop producing the large quantities that eventually end up in our waterways, oceans, and marine life.

And of course, ALWAYS use FABRIC bags when shopping. . .any kind of shopping, not just the supermarket. Please. Teresa

Photo credit: Chris Jordan (www.chrisjordan.com)

Little Man's Valentines. . .

We finished Little Man's Valentines last night. They aren't quite as cute as Abby Glassenberg's but they are still sweet. Little Man loved signing his name to all of them.

We used some scrapbook paper found in Little Girl's room, double stick tape to keep the planes from coming unfolded and Divine Twine for the string. Yay! Teresa

Sweetie Freebie Update

SIX winners have still not responded to emails about winning a bag. Please go into your spam folder and see if it went there on accident. It would be from my father, Dave VanHatten.

Thanks! We want to make sure you all get your sweet bag! Teresa

Sweetie Freebie Winner!

I love the bag! I am quite good about using fabric bags for groceries and am getting better about remembering to bring my own bag when I go shopping (retail), so this pretty little bag will help me that much more!

Iowa Bags!

Hi! We were delighted to win the produce bags and happily surprised to receive a large bag as well! Thank you! You inspired me to try my hand at making a bag myself. I have attached a photo of my youngest helping unpack our groceries. The girls love to use our cloth bags. It's so much easier for them to carry the bags too.

Jen Anhalt
Ankeny, Iowa
Bag 8192!

Valentine Making

I showed little girl this post over at Sew Mama Sew and we both agreed that they would make great Valentines for her class. We didn't stuff them so she could write on them. Instead, we used 2 pieces of fabric lined with fusible interfacing. We simply pinned the pieces together and then cut them out. I cut the hearts freehand so they are all different, but you could make a pattern out of cardboard or use a cookie cutter.

Little Girl removing all the pins.

I'm so glad this went into a pet bed instead of the garbage/landfill.

The finished hearts. Aaaaaah. . . We made sure we had some boy and some girl patterns for the kids in her class.

Closer view. We got a little nuts and made more than she will need, but I will just give some to my friends too!

Little Girl then took fabric markers and wrote the names of the kids. She also drew pics on the side that was blank. Most of the hearts were white on the opposite side.

The finished product. This was a fun project, used MANY scraps (yay) and didn't cost us anything as we already had all the supplies. This is what Little Man and I are going to make for his Valentines. So cute and we have all those supplies too! Have a great week everyone! Teresa

Green Bag Lady Needs YOU!

Go be a FAN of Green Bag Lady on Facebook. Please?

Click here.

I will put updates and freebies on the NEW Facebook page. We hope to keep more in touch with you this way! Thanks--Teresa

Elyse Luray!

This week I had the privilege of meeting the fun and personable Elyse Luray. She came and spoke at Belmont about her successful television program History Detectives on PBS. I told her about Green Bag Lady, sent home bags for her and her nanny and she immediately posted about it on her Facebook page. Thanks Elyse. I hope you are already getting some use out of your bag! Be sure to check out History Detectives on PBS, it is fabulous and educational entertainment for all ages! Teresa

A FREEBIE for 50 SWEETIES. . .

Bagette Dad suggested this 50 FREEBIE. How about it? Leave a comment to get one of 50 bags for your sweetie, or a sweet friend or your sweet self. . .AND a chance at one of TWO JO-ANN GIFT CARDS!

Here are the rules, please follow them:

•In the comment tell us your favorite thing about Valentine's Day.

•DEADLINE FOR THIS 50 FREEBIE IS MIDNIGHT (CST) Friday, February 5, 2010.

•In addition to 50 (yes FIFTY) bags, we will also give away TWO $20.00 GIFT CARDS to JO-ANN FABRICS. We hope this will inspire more supplies for bag making (or other sewing)! Bagette Dad will randomly choose 2 comments for the gift cards.

•We LOVE comments and FREEBIES so tell all your sweet friends!