Drawstring bag, an oops, and a bit of a rant

The mister and I are always trying to find ways to help our middle, impressionable daughter know that there's more to life than pretty princesses. She's three so that's pretty much all she cares about most of the time. In fact, we had a really hard time coming up with Christmas gifts for her that were appropriate for a three-year-old girl, but not just "pretty" and pointless. We've made the decision not to buy Barbies for her and we're trying to limit the influence of dolls and being pretty and dresses (not so successful there) and...and...and...

The mister is also an avid magazine reader. Bloomberg Business had an article in a recent issue about Legos for girls. We were pretty excited and it was interesting to hear what changes were made to the legendary building blocks.

"...There's a Lego phase for boys that's as consuming as the princess phase. But unlike tiaras and pink chiffon, Lego play develops spatial, mathematical, and fine motor skills, and lets kids build almost anything they can imagine, often leading to hours of quiet, independent play." -Bloomberg

While at WalMart last night, the mister spotted a few sets of these Legos for girls and brought some home for her. Thankfully, the one he chose for her was the dog show set rather than the salon (another influence of physical appearance and feminine stereotypes - ugh - but I'll save those rantings for another day).

So now I'll get to the point of this post. After taking the Legos out of the box last night, I quickly realized that we needed a bag to store them in. I've been wanting to try Jeni's drawstring bag tutorial for a while now and this was the perfect time for it.



I made the mistake of not reading through the instructions all the way before cutting the fabric. Otherwise I would've seen how to cut my directional fabric (the ducks) the right way. Oh well. I think having the ducks sideways gives the bag a nice horizontal stripe look.

I also need to stop being lazy and actually change out my thread to a matching color when it'll be visible from the outside. Seriously. That white thread really sticks out against those dots.



The bag came together so easily. I took Kati's advice and used ribbon instead of making the drawstrings to save time. Although, the only ribbon I had on hand was this sheer stuff that I would rather not have used. Now I want to cut out fabric for a few more bags to organize my son's toys too.

So despite my mistakes in constructing the bag, I think it was a hit.



And if any of you have strong feelings about the constant influx of negative media bombarding girls of all ages, feel free to tell me how you feel.