This post made me SO happy!

I LOVE this idea from THIS POST. Let's all do it! Are you in? Those of you who got the extra Amy Butler kit from the Sew Mama Sew Freebie could do this in a snap. I mean, it is already cut out for you! If you do it, send me photos and I'll post them. I might just do it tomorrow! Thanks Agent C, and yes, I know who you are, this is wonderful and made my day!!!!!! Teresa

Israel Bag!

Teresa, I received your bag #13634. I've posted pictures of it on our blog. I hope this will interest more people in using fabric bags.  We here in Israel thank you for all

your good work that you have done.  It's so important.

Fondly,
Etty Robinson

WINNERS!

We drew the 5 winners for the Amy Butler bag freebie and have heard from 3 of them. Congrats to:

Bryanna, Arita and Natalya

We still are waiting to hear from:

shabbychicnewshound and wfish5

Please check your spam folder, if you do not have an email there from Bagette Dad, leave a comment here and I'll get back to you. We want to send you your bag! If we don't hear from you by noon (CST) on January 31, we will draw 2 new names.

Thanks! Teresa

Why to refuse bottled water. . .

Presented by Online Education

click to enlarge

Jason deCaires Taylor

Have you seen this? I found out about this sculpture piece by Jason deCaires Taylor a few months ago and have been fascinated ever since. 400 life size sculptures are submerged off the coast of Mexico. Can you imagine snorkeling and coming upon this unexpectedly?

Go see more of Jason's work here. Teresa

Lauren DiCioccio

I recently discovered The Jealous Curator. Her blog is fabulous. I love looking at contemporary art and reading about the motivation for the work people are doing. Her site is a great compilation of just that. She alerted me to the work of Lauren DiCioccio. How could I resist Lauren's bag project? Fabulous!

These may look like ordinary plastic bags at first glance, but they are not. Here is the description from The Jealous Curator's site:

"A cheap plastic bag from a dollar store? Nope, it’s bridal organza & embroidery that’s been made to look exactly like a cheap plastic bag from a dollar store. Re-explaining this seemed silly so I’ve taken this quote directly from Lauren DiCioccio herself: “[This] is a response to the current movement to eliminate plastic bags from consumer use due to their negative environmental impact… [They are] delicate ghosts of the original bags, mass-produced plastic replaced with soft, tediously worked fabric.”  There you go. Couldn’t have said it better myself."

Thanks Jealous Curator! I'm jealous of your site. Keep up the great work and I'll be checking in! Teresa

I heart books + stop motion. . .

So this is perfect.

This Is Where We Live from 4th Estate on Vimeo.

One more day to enter the Amy Bulter freebie. Teresa

Merry Christmas from me to you!

Don't forget to enter the freebie below! Teresa

Christmas 2010. . .FREEBIE!

I have a gift for YOU this Christmas Eve. A freebie, for 5 Amy Butler bags. 5 people can win! Yay!

These are the bags up for grabs. The fabric is all from the Amy Butler August Fields collection. Amy sent it to me a while back and I've been saving it to make bags for a special occasion. What better time than Christmas?

To enter this freebie do the following:

•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.

•DEADLINE FOR THE FREEBIE IS MIDNIGHT (CST) Monday, DEC 27, 2010.

•5 (yes, 5) LUCKY WINNERS will be chosen at random from the comments to win!

Good Luck! Teresa

PS--Thank you once again to Amy Butler for the gorgeous fabric!

Thank you for entering the FREEBIE, it is now closed. Winners will be notified by Bagette Dad. Stop by again soon, we will do another freebie in the new year! Teresa

Tiny Bag Ornament Instructions + Pattern

You are all so sweet with your nice comments about the little bag ornaments for the Bagettes in the last post. And since you asked so nice, I made a pattern just for you! The only thing that I don't think is obvious in the pattern is the making of the tiny bolts so little girl is my hand model in the photos below.

Press down about 1/2 inch at the top and one of the ends of the fabric for the bolts.

 Next start rolling it on the cardboard, starting at the UNPRESSED end. . .

 Keep rolling. . .

 Finish with the pressed end so it looks nice. . .

 Secure with a straight pin. . .

 It will look like this. . .

 Done. . .

Have fun, again, the pattern is HERE. Please let me know if you make them or send me photos of your creation(s) and I'll post them! Happy last minute sewing! Teresa

Handmade Christmas III

Treats for the Bagettes. . .

I made little bag ornaments out of felt, machine stitched the flowers at the top/attached handles. Machine stitched the words, all the other stitching is by hand (letters/hearts/squares). . .

And what goes in tiny felt bags? Tiny bolts of fabric, of course! You will notice that Bagette Dad's bag only has light blue fabric bolts in it. This is all he would buy at a fabric store. Promise.

The pattern is HERE.

I hope you are making lots! Teresa

Guess what we did today?

Cookies, cookies and more cookies. This one's my fav. . .

 Some more favs, Big Girl made the lady with pearl necklace, Little Man made the other two people (so cute) and Little Girl did the tree with candy canes. . .

Our longtime babysitter, Gloria, showed up to partake in the festivities. She is great. She has been faithfully coming to watch the kids every Sunday afternoon for the past 4+ years. The kids love her. Me too. Thanks Gloria, you rock!

My kitchen looked like a tornado hit. Yikes. It's better now. Yes, my kids are in jammies for these photos. I mean, who puts on clothes just to get them covered with frosting? We did get dressed to go to the park. We had to burn off some of that sugar. What are you up to? Teresa

Last Minute Gift Idea

Photograph by Mike Sutton Brown, Your Shot

I heart National Geographic. Can you tell? I am always posting photos, articles and links from their website. I get the magazine and am a subscriber to the site as well. I love it. I really do. I remember growing up and having all the ones we got in the mail lining the bookshelf in the upstairs hallway. It was a pity to recycle all of them when we divested my parent's house after my mom passed away. The library already had too many.

For only $15 you can give someone a subscription! Adult or kid, they have magazines for both! My kids LOVE NGKids. And, of course, I love the adult version.

Happy Holidays! Teresa

P.S. I get absolutely no compensation from NG for this, I just love the magazine! :)

Reusable Bag Etiquette. . .

Photo: Tim Samoff/Flickr
From Robin Shreeves at Mother Nature Network

1. Empty bags completely after use.
2. Wash all bags regularly, after every use if necessary.
3. Use bags that are easy for the cashier to fill.
4. Place your reusable bags at the front of your grocery order on the conveyer belt so the cashier knows you have them and want them to be used. Don’t freak when the cashier starts putting your groceries in plastic bags if you haven’t let her know you have reusables.
5. Separate all bags so the cashier can easily grab each one as needed.
6. Open bags that fold up into themselves while you are waiting in line. Don’t make the cashier wait for you to open them or worse, make the cashier open them.
7. Let the cashier know how you want your order handled if you don’t have enough reusable bags. Realize it’s your fault for not bringing enough and politely say something like “I’d like the remaining groceries to be put in paper bags, please.”
8. Remember when you bring reusable bags that many cashiers see you as a representative of all environmentalists. Being on your “high horse” can turn people off wanting to do good.
9. Show respect to your cashier by saying please and thank-you, helping to bag, smiling, and staying off your cell phone while she is waiting on you.

Read entire article HERE.

Yay GM!

GM turning BP oil spill booms into Volt parts

Peter Valdes-Dapena, senior writer, On Monday December 20, 2010

General Motors is collecting about 100 miles of plastic booms once used to contain the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and will use recycled plastic from those booms to make Chevrolet Volt electric cars, the automaker announced Monday.

Roughly 100,000 pounds of plastic will be used to make shrouds that will cover radiator fans in the Volt's engine compartment. Besides the plastic from the oil boom plastic, the materials used in the shrouds include recycled tires once used at GM's Milford Proving Grounds, as well as various post-consumer plastics.

The oil boom plastic will be used in the 2011 model year Volts which are now on sale. Some material will probably be left over to use in other cars, as well, a GM spokeswoman said.

"Creative recycling is one extension of GM's overall strategy to reduce its environmental impact," Mike Robinson, GM vice president of Environment, Energy and Safety policy, said in an announcement.

With the help of outside companies, the automaker began collecting and processing the oil booms in June, and the work is expected to go on for at least another two months.

"If sent to a landfill, these materials would have taken hundreds of years to begin to break down and we didn't want to see the spill further impact the environment," said John Bradburn, manager of GM's waste-reduction efforts, in the GM announcement. "We knew we could identify a beneficial reuse of this material given our experience."

GM has been working to improve the environmental image of its Chevrolet brand with a campaign centered around the Volt. A recently launched Chevrolet-branded carbon reduction campaign includes a Web site at Chevycarbonreduction.com. The automaker also recently announced that more than half its factories are now "landfill free."

Chinese cans. . .

My friend James is in China right now. He is fascinated by the symbols on the waste/recycle cans there. I can't blame him! Teresa

Hard to Stomach. . .

A 30-kilogramme lump of the intertwined remains of plastic bags and plastic rope is not exactly pleasing to the eye. So why would anyone want to put it into an exhibition hall, let alone pay to ship it all the way from the UAE to the US?

Yet this is exactly what the American artist Ann Savageau is doing, to make a point.

The plastic rock once filled the stomach of a camel. It grew gradually as the animal grazed on discarded plastic debris, eventually blocking its stomach and causing a slow and agonising death.

The artist's message is simple: avoid plastic shopping bags, which are on average only used for 12 minutes each, and opt for reusable ones.

"I want to make it very tangible to people, to show them what happens when you buy plastic bags," said Dr Savageau, who is also an associate professor of design at the University of California, Davis.

Read the rest of the story HERE.

You might remember Ann Savageau from THIS POST a while back. Teresa

Today at LeQuire Gallery

Bagette Kathleen and I had a lovely time at LeQuire Gallery today. Everyone is so sweet over there, I think I'll move in! Don't know who Alan LeQuire is? Go here and you can read all about this amazing Nashville artist. He is responsible for the Athena in the Nashville Parthenon and Musica in the roundabout downtown and much more. . .

The first photo is Alan with his bag and some of his pieces in the studio. . .

Thanks to everyone that stopped by and got bags. Special thanks to Alan, Andree and Elizabeth for having us! Teresa