I think by now almost everyone has heard of pinterest.   Have you joined yet?  You should, it’s awesome!  It’s like a huge, on-line filing cabinet.  Instead of having a million bookmarks saved to things you want to go back to, you can easily find them on your pinterest boards.  I currently have 880 pins on 18 different boards.  I have a ton of quilts, sewing tutorials, craft projects and recipes.  There are so many great projects and ideas, I have decided to try a new pin every week for a year and share my experiences here on my blog!

The first thing I decided to do is an upcycled sewing case made from an old train case.  This is the original pin (sorry, source wasn’t available)

This one was cute, but I didn’t want to completely cover the case.  So I started scouring the local antique stores to find a case that didn’t smell too bad inside!  I finally found a blue Samsonite train case for $12!  I didn’t take a before picture, but this is basically what it looked like.

I had some old patterns that belonged to my husband’s aunt.  Most of them were from the 70s and had great primary colors on them.  I picked out the ones I wanted to use and went to Michael’s to get a few other stickers to fill in.  This is how it turned out.

I used a combination of mod podge, craft glue and hot glue to get everything to stick.  I hot glued the buttons on the latches and the measuring tape around the top.  I added the tiny rick rack around the top with fast drying craft glue.

Here’s a view of the top.  I used pieces I cut out from the pattern sleeve and stickers I found at Michael’s.  The sit, sew, swear saying on the top is my sewing version of live, laugh, love.

Side view.

Other side view.

This is a view of the back.  I used more of the stickers and added some buttons.  I also added my name on the back so no one would try and steal my awesome case! (and because I had A LOT of letter stickers left)

I used some of the actual pattern pieces on the inside.  My case didn’t come with the tray that goes on the top, so I am looking for one of those. I LOVE how my sewing case turned out.  It is the perfect size to put all of my sewing accessories in.  If I pack carefully, I can fit my iron and a small project in it too!  It’s a great size to tote everything to sewing days, guild meetings and retreats.  For $12, I think I got a bargain!  Stay tuned for next week’s pinterest post!

Alison