Photo Finish Friday

Aren't they cute? I had the pleasure of speaking to Bagette Jackie's granddaughters 3rd grade class last Friday for Earth Day. They were SO sweet and impressed me with their knowledge of recycling and even plastic in the ocean! Way to go 3rd graders. Jackie's granddaughter is on the far right, she's simply adorable!

These are pretty cool.

Horrifying.

Wow.

Yum. These too.

Just ordered another one of these. Let the grilling commence!

I'm really thinking I need to start listening to Podcasts. Maybe while I sew? Do you listen?

What's your plan this weekend? I'm headed to Nashville. YAY! I get to see my old colleagues and my Bagettes. So excited. My godchild is also having her First Communion. It's a banner weekend all around. Big Girl is going with me to look at Vanderbilt and Belmont Universities. I still can't believe she'll be off to college soon. Teresa

Workday Wednesday

The secret is out. People have figured out that I'm handy with a needle and thread! I have been SO busy doing alterations these past few weeks. I hemmed and adjusted countless prom dresses, took up at least a dozen pairs of pants, dresses and skirts, fixed a mink coat, adjusted the sleeves on a sport coat as well as hemmed some curtains and made pillow covers. Whew!

I have also been working on special orders for my etsy shop. One person wanted 26 of these snack bags as goodies for her colleagues. While I was at it, I made 60 just to have on hand. I've already sold another 5 of them. I hope to put a few sets in the shop…

This is another special order. One of my friends here has a daughter on the crew team at Creighton University. She wanted little pouches for the team. I was able to find this cute oar/paddle fabric from an etsy shop. Creighton's colors are blue and white so it worked out great. Can you see that I did the quilting in waves?

This is the back. Creighton's mascot is the blue jay and I live how this fabric coordinated with the paddles.

Off to do more alterations. What have you been up to lately? I'd love to hear. Teresa

Spring Fling Event

Last Saturday my neighborhood association held a Spring Fling Eco event. I gave out bags at the same event last year when my sister was in town. This year I was solo and gave out 45+ bags. Everyone was so sweet and nice and there were tons of little kids. They get so excited about picking out a bag. YAY! Teresa

Belarus Bags!

dear Teresa ! First I want to convey to you the greetings from the small country of Belarus ! and I want to tell you thank you for your bags ! I will use them in the summer for hiking to the beach or hiking the Food ! The design and quality of the bags very much, you are a master of his craft ! I will continue to participate in your contest :) good luck :) Tatiana. 

Florida Bags!

These bags were made by my cousins wife. The fabric was given to her by the incomparable Aunt Frances (previously here and here). It's too difficult for Aunt Frances to sew any longer, but it's nice to know that she is passing on fabric to keep the bag making going! She's awesome. Teresa

Fabric given to me by my dear Mother-In-Law Frances Trapp! Green Bags made for my friends! I just love sharing your story! I take my Green Bags everywhere!

Isabelle Trapp
Florida

Mother/Kid WINNERS!

Congratulations to the following lucky folks:

The 3 WINNERS of a necklace and a Kid shopping bag are:

Betty J, ID
Kris B, MI
Cindy W, MI

The 12 WINNERS of a Green Bag Lady Kid shopping bags are:

Bethany P, TN
Lucille P, SOUTH AFRICA
Valeria L, RUSSIA
Dawn E, CA
Cathie R, WA
Beth T, OR

Keyt Y, UKRAINE
Olena D, UKRAINE
Alexandr H, BELARUS
Nina H, LATVIA
Ekatrina S, RUSSIA
Tatyana T, RUSSIA

Please look for an email from Bagette Dad. He will be asking for your mailing address so we can send you your prize. PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER. We have issues with emails going to spam. Thanks and enjoy!

The emails will look like this:
Green Bag Lady, MotherKid_4_2016

Mother/Kid FREEBIE!

We have teamed up with Corina from Linked to Love esty shop for this freebie. We have some fun things for kiddos AND for MOM! 

We have 15 kid themed bags, everything from The Little Engine that Could to Olaf from Frozen to teddy bears. Fun!

And, look at these super cute necklaces from Corina's shop. Silver and crystals don't get much better except when they are wrapped in wire with pretty beads. 3 lucky moms (USA only) will get one of these!

To enter to win a BAG (open to everyone, world-wide):

•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, you will not be entered in the freebie.

•DEADLINE FOR THE FREEBIE IS 9pm (PST) MONDAY, April 25. (winners will be notified no later than April 26 via email and here on the blog so CHECK BACK!)

Don't forget to leave us your email! We will only contact you if you win. 

We will randomly pick 15 people to win, the first 3 people from the USA that are picked will win a necklace AND a bag the other 12 will win shopping bags.

Don't forget to check out Linked to Love on etsy and on Facebook!

One entry per person. If you enter more than once, all your entries will be disqualified.

We will ship shopping bags internationally. You MUST use English for your comments. Do the best you can. Non-English comments will be removed.

Good luck!!!!! Teresa

New to Green Bag Lady? Click HERE.
Like Green Bag Lady on Facebook HERE.
To make your own bags, super easy pattern HERE.
Check out my etsy shop that helps support Green Bag Lady HERE.

Photo Finish Friday

About 1/2 of the 2 feet of snow we got last weekend.

My "girls" coming to visit and foraging for food this week. Note how much of the snow is already melted.

Big Girl would LOVE these.

Cool upcycling.

Gorgeous. The elephant!

Beautiful Mother Earth.

To try. And, this too!

Are you lucky? I am.

Hopelessly devoted to pencils. Who knew?

HAPPY EARTH DAY!!!! Today and every day. :)
A very busy weekend at my house. Tonight I get to see Big Girl as the lead in her High School play, yipee! Tomorrow morning I'm giving bags at an Earth Day event, afternoon tennis match, then prom photos. Sunday is a 5K race for Little Man's school and meeting with the Bagettes. Whew, wish me luck! Teresa

Workday Wednesday: Prom Edition

Remember last Friday I mentioned I had a plethora of prom dresses to alter? Well, I finished 5 of them on Friday while I was buried under 2 feet of snow. Photos on that tomorrow. Right after I had those finished, a panicky mom texted me to say that her daughter had a dress that needed a lot of help. Understatement of the year… This dress (pictured below) was a size 10 and the girl was a size 2. Yikes! It needed reconstruction of the bodice as well as hemming.

I got the bodice all fixed and went to work on the hem only to find this…

Oh no! And, it was on the outer layer of the dress. My first thought was to hem it a few more inches so I could cut it off. Only problem was thread. I had bought the only 2 spools at Joann that were the perfect color which is very important when doing a serged hem.

I decided to try cutting it out very carefully with tiny pointy scissors. These are my favorite for this kind of thing.

 Voila! Check it out. After pressing with a warm iron, you can't even tell!

Feeling pretty good about this one. :) Teresa

California Bags!

Thank you so much for our bags from the purple give away. Fight like a princess had a great day using them at the Epilepsy walk in San Diego.

JoAnn P.

Greece Bags!

I had won back in December the sewmamasew giveaway of your bags. I only now managed to blog about them. I loved them and loved using them to take Christmas gifts to friends and relatives. You can see my blogpost here. Thank you once again.

Ariadne Skyrianidou

Greece

Lunch

I still have smoothies for lunch a few times a week. The other day I shook things up with a new recipe and it was super yummy. And, still toast with cashew butter on the side.

Mango/Spinach Smoothie

1 cup almond milk (or other milk)
1/3 cup plain or vanilla yogurt
1/4 cup raw almonds
1 cup spinach
1 cup frozen mango

Put first 3 ingredients in blender and run until smooth. Add spinach, run until smooth. Add mango a few chunks at a time. Add some water if too thick.

Enjoy! Happy Monday! Teresa

Photo Finish Friday

These tiny signs of spring in my yard will be crushed tomorrow.
We are supposed to get 6-8 inches of snow over the weekend, WHAT???

These look yummy.

And these too.

Wow. Good for her.

How cool.

This just happened near me. Went yesterday. Love!

To make. So cute!

This is awesome. (And, produced by my friend's daughter!)

Due to the snow, I'm going to be pretty much stuck this weekend which is ok since I have a plethora of prom dresses to alter. What are you doing this weekend? I'm hoping for you sunshine and the springy weather I'm dreaming about! Teresa

UPDATE: Bag #32,278

This is wonderful Jo, thank you for sharing! Teresa

Hi Teresa and Bagette Dad

I thought you might like to know where bag number 32,278 ended up.  This was our birthday giveaway bag.  I've just heard today that the Operation Christmas Child shoebox containing this bag went to Iraq.  I can't be sure of the exact destination of the box but I know that shoeboxes have been distributed in refugee camps in Northern Iraq for the last two years.  I would say it's a fairly safe bet that the bag is now being used by a (Syrian?) refugee girl.  Isn't that wonderful?

Best wishes,
Jo
Coordinator
UNITED KINGDOM 
SHOEBOX BAGETTES CHAPTERS

UPDATE: THE NETHERLANDS, Achterhoek Region Chapter

This made me smile huge. How cute are these bags?? Teresa

Today Dieuwertje and I made 17 Dutch bags. In the national colours and with tulips!

Ingeborg
Achterhoek Region
Chapter Coordinator

UPDATE: New Jersey Chapter

Look at all these great bags Liz is making in New Jersey! Cows, cherries, flowers and those rainbow bags! Yippee! I can see why the recipients are happy. Thanks for all the hard work Liz, they look great! Teresa

Morris Plains, NJ checking in. I have received an amazing donation of fabric from Cindy J. and very shortly I am meeting with Claire B. who also has a donation for Green Bag Lady. I love when I can dedicate time to the Green Bag Lady effort and the response to the bags is always very positive. I am in need of more numbers please. I was originally given 33600:33649 and they are constructed and in the hands of happy recipients.

Here are some of the bags that have gone out in NJ. 

Thank you!
Liz
NJ Chapter Coordinator

Colorado Bags!

I got this nice email from Ina, see below, and some follow up photos. Glad the bags arrived to you safely Ina, enjoy and welcome to Colorado! Teresa

Good day,

My name is Ina. My husband and I received your shopping bags in the Philippines around 3 years. Well, we really made use of your bags while doing grocery shopping there. Your high quality bags were very practical. We wore them many times that one was of them was even worn after heavy kilograms of vegetables. 

Now we moved to Fort Collins, Colorado. Among the things we put in our suitcase was your grocery bag. We realized that in US all supermarkets are not environment friendly and consume too many plastic bags. We already got more 100 plastic bags within a month and the number keeps increasing. We really would like to care about environment. My husband and I were wondering if we could get grocery bags from you again, so we could decrease usage of plastic bags in US. I could sew bags on my own but I don't have a sewing machine.

Please let me know if that it is possible. Thanks.

Regards,

Ina

Dear ma'am Teresa,

Finally was able to take a few photos with my husband and our grocery bags only today. Thank you so much. A lady from local  supermarket complimented the bags 😃.

Regards,

Ina 

UPDATE: Washington Chapter

Thanks for the update Bell! Mona is my kinda gal! Not much that better than bags and chocolate. :) Teresa

Hi Teresa,
This is Mona Newbauer (local owner of Sweet Mona's Chocolates) with her new green bags. I received cute IKEA fabric from a local quilter and whipped these up for her.

Bell Moore
Coordinator
Green Bag Lady--Washington Chapter

Hello Spring! Floral WINNERS!

Congratulations to the following lucky folks:

WINNERS of the 12 Green Bag Lady Floral shopping bags are:

Cassandra B, OR
Sara M, CA
Marina S, RUSSIA
Gill W, ENGLAND
Irene S, TX
Kathryn S, CANADA

Sergei F, RUSSIA
Anna P, RUSSIA
Catherine G, AUSTRALIA
Nataliya M, UKRAINE
Maria S, RUSSIA
Svetlana M, RUSSIA

Please look for an email from Bagette Dad. He will be asking for your mailing address so we can send you your prize. PLEASE CHECK YOUR SPAM FOLDER. We have issues with emails going to spam. Thanks and enjoy!

The emails will look like this:
Green Bag Lady, HelloSpring_4_2016

Hello Spring! Floral FREEBIE!

I can see them, the signs of spring, flowers popping up and 60 degree weather. I know it will truly be here when the fawns appear. I can't wait for that! In the meantime, let's have a little floral spring cheer. We have 12 pretty floral bags waiting for new homes. How about yours?

To enter to win a BAG (open to everyone, world-wide):

•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, you will not be entered in the freebie.

•DEADLINE FOR THE FREEBIE IS 9pm (PST) MONDAY, April 11. (winners will be notified no later than April 12 via email and here on the blog so CHECK BACK!)

Don't forget to leave us your email! We will only contact you if you win. 

We will randomly pick 12 people to win shopping bags.

One entry per person. If you enter more than once, all your entries will be disqualified.

We will ship shopping bags internationally. You MUST use English for your comments. Do the best you can. Non-English comments will be removed.

Good luck!!!!! Teresa

New to Green Bag Lady? Click HERE.
Like Green Bag Lady on Facebook HERE.
To make your own bags, super easy pattern HERE.
Check out my etsy shop that helps support Green Bag Lady HERE.

Photo Finish Friday

A pack of 14 does on my drive this morning.

Amazing Mother Earth.

Field trip!

Cannot tell you how much I love this. (my former office)

Nice.

Both my girls would love this.

Green Bag Lady Westchester, NY has a FB page, check it out! (and like it!)

I know I haven't posted a Workday Wednesday in a bit, it's not because I haven't been making anything, just crazy busy over here. How about you? What do you have going on in your world? I would love to hear about it, especially if it is something relaxing like walking on the beach, dinner out or a good glass of wine! Teresa

Nice Video from Jeff Bridges

Nice. Way to go Jeff Bridges. Remember your Green Bag Lady bags when you are shopping! Teresa

UPDATE: MASSACHUSETTS Chapter

Pat has been working hard in MA to make these awesome bags (bagel bag!!!) and distributing them to individuals and organizations that can use them. Yipee! Keep up the great work Pat. Teresa

Hi Teresa, here are some of the bags I made for your project. I hope they look good to you! 😄
Take care and have a great day!   

Pat
Coordinator, Hopkinton Chapter
MASSACHUSETTS

The Very Best Chocolate Bar

My new favorite chocolate bar. I would be surprised if I could find anything to top it. Soooooo good and made LOCALLY in Boudler, CO. Love at first bite. Ha! This one is lovely too. Teresa

UPDATE: NEW YORK, Westchester Chapter

Dina and her crew of volunteers made a bunch of wonderful bags to donate to a local food bank. Love it! Keep up the great work Dina!!! Teresa

We had so much fun making bags. Green Bag Lady Westchester Chapter with Westchester Geeks made 25 bags today!

Bags are being donated to the Food Bank For Westchester.

Dina Klar
Chapter Coordinator
Westchester, NY

Photo Finish Friday

Steamboat Ski Resort taken by my friend Debbie.

We were in Steamboat Springs skiing last week for Spring Break, one night we saw 3 moose in front of the house we stayed in!!

Trees are awesome.

Good advice.

So many ways to NOT use this stuff.

Got this cookbook from the Easter Bunny. I'll let you know what I think.

Kinda love this. I think I could make them.

Both of my girls are loving this right now.

Finally, Little Girl and I have been watching this show on Netflix. It's so cute. Great for 8-15 year olds. No mushy inappropriate stuff.

And you? What are you up to? I'm going to a hip hop dance class tonight. Yup, you read that right. One of my friends does it each year and it's a blast. There will be NO photos. Teresa