Sewing in September-Tutorial for Embellishing Your Tote Bag

I've done a little bit of sewing this month and completed several projects that I've had in varying degrees of completion.  I've done a tutorial for one bag that I finished yesterday.  It's a Christmas present for my niece.  I don't know if the rest of you guys have realized it, but there are only 87 days until Christmas and I have be done with most of my gifts way before that because they are going to have to go in the mail this year!  I am making most of them and I am WAY behind schedule. 

The tricks in this tutorial are things that you could do to any tote bag or purse to give it a little touch of you.  I got the tote bag here in the dollar section at Target.  That section of the store just sucks the money right out of my purse.  I promise I hear the sound of an industrialized vacuum being switched on as soon as I walk in the door and then there I zoom right to the dollar bins!  Well here we go!

So here's my bag and the first thing I wanted to do with it was put my niece's initial on the front.  I have these large lowercase letters that I bought at a scrapbook store and they have come in handy for these types of projects where I need a pattern to trace.  I used the sewable HeatnBond .

I followed the directions on the HeatnBond package and attached it to the back of my fabric.

I put my pattern down backwards on the paper and then...

traced around it with a pen.  You want to do it backward so that it correct when you flip it over.

Then I cut out the letter and as you can see when flipped over it is facing the correct way.

Then I followed the directions again

for affixing the letter to the bag. 

Here it is and it's stuck on their pretty well but I decided to stitch around it anyway.

I was going to do it by hand but then I decided to try a zigzag stitch using my sewing machine.  I am sure it was still faster but I am slow doing this stitch as there were many turns.  I think the hardest part was the round part of the "r".

Next, I wanted to make a fabric flower. 

I used the ribbon holder to trace circles onto the fabric. 

4 circles are needed for this type of flower.

Then I folded each circle in half and then in half again. 

Right side of fabric facing out. 

Put a little stitch in the bottom to keep the fabric folded together.

That's how they should look.

I decided to place the flower on one side at the top of the bag near the handle. 

I lined up each fabric petal with a hole in the button and stitched it through the fabric and the button hole. 

So once the petals were attached to the button then I sewed the button on to the bag. 

Then I sewed on two more layers of buttons. 

Large, medium and then smallest on top. 

I think the flower turned out cute. 

I hope my niece will like it!  Caleb did!

Here are some other little purses that

I have been making for some other little girls I know.  I love this owl print!