Crafting Cupboard: Toting A Review
By Marci Watterson
People tend to read what interest them the most or out of necessity. We read as a general rule every day, whether fixing something, putting something together, improving our jobs, following the latest news, completing student requirements, or trying to lose ourselves in a good novel on the road or maybe during a quite night at home, but we read.

As a parent, I wanted to help bring out that desire to read in my children and so we were off, tote in hand to the smorgasbord of knowledge, the library!

A recent idea seemed to inspire my children and making them honorary book review critics had them hounding me for more books and not the other way around. I have to admit, I enjoyed this craft also and I can keep track of their progress in reading too.

Materials: A tote, (I found a value pack of three, under $6.00 at Wal-mart); iron on stars, (for your review); an iron; scissors; sewing pins; a ruler; a washable Sharpie pen, (found at our local grocery store, Ferguson& Hassler); a small 3 ¼ x 4 ½ inch composition note book and a pen, (found at our local Family Dollar Store); 3-D fabric paints, (found at SGMC in Quarryville or your local crafting store); Blank bookmarks for decorating, (located at A.C. MOORE), or make that a project of its own out of card stock from SGMC; about 1 ½ yards of white fabric, (for a mock book and review); about a ½ yard colored fabric, (for card and bookmark pocket); 3 yards colored binding, (used to reinforce sides of pockets to totes); washable fabric glue; several embroidered Appliqués; 3 yards decorative cord piping, (we used gold piping); about 2 yards heavy duty fusible web, ( this amount is an overkill, but nice to have for add on as you go), these fabric supplies were purchased at our local GOODS STORE in Quarryville also.

Prepping Items: You will want to pre-wash the totes without fabric softener and/or bleaching and iron out wrinkles. Iron the fusible web to the white fabric on one side to save time you may want to cut out a piece of cardboard the size of the Library card, (so not to damage the card). Have the age appropriate children scrape the underside of the Appliqués with scissors as to rough up the gluing area.

Helpful Hints: There are directions on everything, please take time to acquaint yourself with what you have. If you don’t like to measure, here is a neat trick for the pockets, double the size of the item you’re pocketing and add an additional inch for wiggle room and fold around the object, then press with iron for creases. Remember to remove the object and add a smaller piece of fusible web to the back side, this will resemble a diaper or envelope. One side will be folded over and glued for an opening. By chance you really don’t like making pockets, go get envelopes that the item could fit into and then unfold the envelope, pin to the fabric and cut around it. After creating the pocket forms and refolding the fabric into a diaper/ envelope shape place a slightly smaller piece of fusible web onto the folded side and iron in place. The library card pocket had a small crescent shape cut out of the glued top portion before completely drying, for easy access.

The white fabric can be trimmed to resemble a book by cutting a ½ inch slit in the top center and one in the bottom center of a 8”x 9” piece of fabric and cutting from top left corner edge to bottom center slit, back out to right corner edge, (an upside-down elongated triangle). Now turn the fabric around and repeat. Iron one on each tote.

The binding can be cut and glued to be an edge to each side of the mock book. This also doubles as added strength to the iron on book. Adding binding to the notebook pocket gives a nice added touch also.

Creating pages is as simple as drawing a line, literally. Mark a distance of an inch all the way down the page on both sides. Draw a parallel line across the book at the top, then one in the middle and one an inch up from the bottom; these are guides for more lines that angle into the middle of the mock book. Now instead of an inch between each line in the middle, make it slightly less, this will allow for a flared appearance. You are drawing from the left to the middle, at a slight angle; back out to the right side.

With the Sharpie pen you can write at the top of the page,” Books I’ve Read and My Review”, as you read, write the book title and make a critic’s review placing 1 star for poor, 2 for ok, 3 average, 4 for tell a friend, and 5 for I’d read again! Make notations in the little notebooks as they’re read, especially if you’re going to write a report.

Since you already created pockets and had the backing scraped off the Appliqués the children can decide what and where things go, just remove the paper from the webbing and iron on their pockets first before they start the gluing the little Appliqués. They can make neat designs with the 3-D paint and even embed the piping cord for added effect, just remind them the glue needs to dry, so mind where your hands are.

Helpful Notation: Work on one side at a time, so glue sets up over night. Bookmarks can easily be made from cardstock and be an added crafting project, just buy a hole punch at the Family Dollar Store and use your imagination! Yes this is a project worth repeating and keeping, another packet of totes will be waiting for crafters and readers alike.

Photos by Marci Watterson

Past Articles
Crafting Cupboard: Designing on a Budget

 

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