Sophey wanted a red polka dot bikini for her birthday from the children's Mini Boden catalog this year. This was quite a shock. She has never wanted to wear a bikini ever-- and she never wears red. This child's wardrobe consists of about 94% pink colored clothing. Hot pink, light pink, peachy pink, lipstick pink, whatever.... just as long as it is some form of pinkishness. One day, as Sophey was walking out of school, a girlfriend I was talking with commented on Sophey's clothing ensemble. She always looks so color coordinated, my friend said. My reply, "How can you NOT be color coordinated when your entire wardrobe is pink ?!"
Anyway, after the red polka dot bikini showed up we realized the pink beach totes just would not be cutting it this summer. So the other day while at the our fav craft store, we stumbled upon red canvas tote bags. Bingo.
So we got busy with the polka dots. (I took a few extra tote bags home and made my own version for the children's shop I sell to.) Sophey's bag is almost finished. She decided her tote will be all red and white fabrics-- checks, red and white florals, and more polka dots. And giant white ric rac. (She calls it rif raf. I like rif raf better than ric rac, don't you? I'm calling it rif raf from here on out :)
But anyway, here's mine.
We stamped the canvas with white acrylic craft paint. I started from the corner and worked diagonally up the bag.
We made our stamps from some small stencil stompers and those felted chair feet pad things. (We did this because the craft store didn't have any of those cirular blue foam pouncing sponge things-- not because we are that hard up to be clever. Personally, I was stumped on how to make polka dots without my favorite blue foamy things.) But Sophey wasn't stumped for long-- she rummaged around a minute and then pulled out the leftover chair pads in the kitchen junk drawer and said, "I think these things would work!" (So see, it's a good thing to have a junky junk drawer-- do you want clue Martha in on this, or should I? ;)
While the polka dots were drying, I ripped up some fabrics. Starting at the top of the bag, I zigzag stitched along until I had a few rows of fabric pieced together.
Then I added some vintage trims. I found a whole bolt of that green pom pom fringe at the thrift shop the other day. And the yellow daisy trim is from the '60s-- love that stuff.
I made a hairclip to match and tucked it onto the bag.
I made a second similiar bag too-- this one with a vintage red doily and a daisy cut from an old sweater.
We hit the pool for an hour on Memorial day. It was freezing. I hope it gets warm here someday. It's been the coldest spring ever here-- no exaggerating. It snowed on May 28th, and that late date set a new state record.
Now we really need to get one last polka dot beach bag finished to go with that bikini... summer is almost here. Really. We hope. Someday. Soon.
xoxoKelly
