Little lavender bags

Every year I try to come up with ideas for small gifts the children can make (or help make) for teachers and friends. My 9-year-old likes to use the sewing machine, my 5-year-old loves things that smell nice, and I like things that use up scraps of fabric - so I decided that lavender bags were the way to go.

I used this tutorial with one alteration - I ironed one edge of each square in to the wrong side about 1cm, to make sewing the sachets closed a little easier.

In order to avoid having children rifle through my fabrics I first cut out several sets of two squares, 5" x 5" (my ruler uses inches - but that's about 12.5cm in metric), and ironed one side in as mentioned earlier. Once the children had selected the fabrics they liked I pinned each set of squares right sides together, adding a little ribbon 'tag' as suggested in the tutorial, and K sewed them around three sides, leaving the ironed-in side open. We turned the squares the right way and filled them with a mixture of dried lavender flowers and rice before sewing the open sides closed. R is very enthused about end-of-year/Christmas gift-giving (and, of course, receiving!) and made some beautiful water-colour cards to go with her bags:

These are so quick and easy - an ideal project for little ones wanting to have a go on the machine. The lavender bags smell absolutely divine and I will definitely be making a few for myself if there's any lavender left. And if you're in Australia and are wondering where to get lavender, I found mine in the craft section of Spotlight.