Happy Monday! As promised, I'm back with another dance team craft project today. My girls just had their first annual team sleepover on Saturday night, so my oldest daughter and her co-captain wanted to make it extra special. And, what's more special than some personalized goodies to kick off the season! After quite a bit of online searching for inexpensive make-up bags with no success, I was planning on just making them. But, as luck would have it, we dropped by our local Dollar Tree store to pick up the items to fill the bags and happened upon these cute insulated lunch totes in a perfect light blue! Now here's the upgrade...when I returned home, I did some simple lettering on my Cricut Design Space in navy solid iron-on vinyl using a varsity style lettering and blue glitter in a bold script font. To set the captains apart, I swapped out the blue glitter for gold. Now, as you can imagine, these are not high-end bags. That means you need to use extra care when applying the vinyl with an iron by using an old pillow case or similar weight pressing cloth. Also, the insulated backing sort of sticks to the outer nylon layer after the ironing (which initially freaked me out!) but I just pulled the layers apart and it looked back to normal. Here's a photo step-by-step to get you started. Oh, and just for fun, we personalized the hairbrush handles with regular navy vinyl too! The bags were then used as their place cards at the dinner table. The captains had found quotes they felt represented each girl and taped them to the inside of the bags, which made them even more personalized. The bags were filled with matching lipstick and eyeliner, gum, bobby pins, hair elastics, and hair brushes. The girls loved them, and I love seeing a coordinated team. It's a win-win!
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| The swag. Of course, each girl will add their own supplies too! (Note: We ended up swapping out these brushes for some that better matched the color of the bags.) |
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| Unzip the top and lay flat before ironing! |
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| Step One: Iron-on the names, 1/2" above seam line and centered. |
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| Use the heat setting recommended by the vinyl company and a pressing cloth! |
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| Step Two: Iron on the script team name, centering over the name. It's okay if they overlap a bit! |
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| Here you can see how the layers sort of stick together after ironing, but just separate by grabbing the top and inner layers of fabric and pulling! |
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| Added a bit of ribbon to the zipper pull in the team colors! A dap of hot glue will help hold it securely. |
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| The finished bags...they loved them! |
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| A closer look at the brush handles (done with Thirsty Script Extra Bold font). |
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| The Captains get a little extra gold lettering on their brushes! |
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| The aftermath. Why is it I always forget to take a picture before the fun happens!?! |
