Teacher Tote

I finished the first of two teacher totes that I am making my twins preschool teachers for an end-of-year gift. (I followed this tutorial HERE.)

This one, obviously, belongs to "Ms. Sharon":

She has been a wonderful teacher for my boys.  I am just amazed at how much they have learned in the two mornings a week they have spent in her class! 

Just the other day, Twin B was telling me all about how we live on Earth, and Earth is a planet, and planets are in Outer Space, and Mars is another planet and so is Mercury, and the Sun is NOT a planet, it is a star....

Wait, what??  How do you know all this, kid?? 

Obviously, an awesome teacher. 

And in my world, an awesome teacher deserves an awesome, handmade tote bag.  With her name on it.

(This is the top, detailing the contrast between the inner and outer fabrics.)

(And the lining fabric)

The coolest thing about these totes, is that I basically let my boys pick out the fabrics for it.  I took them to the home decor fabrics section (I wanted the exterior to be a little bit sturdier than just using quilting cottons) and let them go. 

Well, they are only three, and boys, so looking is not good enough.  Once they decided to start pulling out bolts and bolts, I decided to corral things before they got too out of hand, and limited their choices to what they had already pulled out.

That was how we chose the pink floral.

Then I took them to the cottons and, with a little direction (i.e: "Uh, brown and green plaid probably wouldn't be the prettiest for your teachers bag,  Why don't you go pick one of those black fabrics??") we finally decided on the black wavy dots.

I think they did pretty well for three-year-old boys!

Now, I just need to think of something fun to put inside the bag, and Thursday they will be sent to school with my boys. 

And I can't believe their first year of preschool is OVER.

Excuse me while I go cry a little bit.

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