Gifts for Nieces!

Whew!  We are back from a speed trip to Nebraska.  Friday we went up, Saturday we came back.  On Tuesday I decided that I wanted to have something to give my nieces, and finalized the designs I wanted to use on tote bags I had found earlier this year at Target.  It is very easy to create a truly unique and personalized gift.  

Thread and ribbon can be used to match or to create accent colors.  I chose chocolate brown for the plain blue bag, since the chocolate/blue combo is popular.  The other two bags already had an accent color used for the contrasting straps.  So, I just made sure to pick thread (which required a trip to Joanne's of course) to match the straps as closely as possible.  I also picked up ribbon (at 50 cents a spool, why not?) in case I wanted to add more decoration to the bags.  I used the Chunky Curlz Applique font for 4x4 hoop (Chunky-Curlz-Embroidery-Font) from 8 Claws and A Paw Embroidery.  I also used the Swirls font for the second "R" on the blue bag (Spiral-Outline-Embroidery-Font).  

I used my machine's fonts for the bag tags and for the buttons.  I put the buttons for my two oldest nieces on jumbo paperclips so that they could used them a paperclips, and I put the youngest's button on a chain so it could be used to identify any item her mom wants.  Each of the bag tag fobs are on key rings so that they can be attached to any bag the girls are using on a regular basis, and they can also be used as zipper pulls (as with the blue bag).  So here are some pictures of the finished bags.  I did add a chocolate and blue bow to the blue bag after these pictures were taken to make it more feminine.