Holiday Hand-Mades, Lavender Dryer Sachets

Each year, around Christmas-time (which now for all intents and purposes extends to about a week before Thanksgiving, sheesh), when over-stuffed shopping carts are racing wheel to wheel through store isles to get the last Tickle-Me toy or I-nano gizmo just as check-out lines are both expanding and retarding exponentially, I become extra blase' about the glut of consumerism and material greed surrounding it all. I always say to myself, "This year, I'm going to conserve resources, save money, and use my craftiness and creativity to make all my gifts for loved ones." And even with three or four or even five weeks left until the holiday, I never manage to get in gear and actually do it. I might muster up the energy and time to whip up one small hand-made trinket or ornament to give to my mother, but generally I expend all my efforts in other tasks or pursuits. I mean, who isn't busy in December with their regular lives, their everyday chores, their jobs, their long list of prominent stresses? The last time I was completely carefree in spirit and had a surplus of available hours to do arts and crafts around the holidays, I was in the third grade!

But the spirit of Christmas 2008 has gifted me with a very opportune, albeit somewhat disconcerting, change in job-status, i.e. I'm currently unemployed for the month of December*. That translates to a plethora of spare minutes to actually do some mean hand-made making of gifts!

One of my first projects involved sacheting everything in sight! I recently purchased a large quantity of plain, hand-sewn, muslin drawstring bags online at a neat little website called Earthsong Fibers. I hadn't intended to use them for holiday gift-making, but the original intended purpose (to make silica gel sachets to string in mass quantity around our home in a desperate attempt to de-humidify the air) was both impractical and no longer necessary.

Here are the details of the Lavender Dryer Sachets I made:

Materials Needed:
Muslin Drawstring Bags
or 3"X5" Fabric Swatches (to construct your own hand-sewn sacks)
Acrylic Paint and Fine-Detail Paintbrush
Dried Lavender Buds
Sewing Needle
Embroidery or Heavy-Duty Thread

Super Simple Instructions:

1. If using pre-made bags, skip this step. If you are hand-sewing your bags out of fabric you've chosen yourself, sew two pieces wrong-side together along three sides, leaving one side open to stuff with lavender. Turn right-side-out. Simple enough.

2. Place a piece of cardboard or paper inside bag, so paint won't seep through. Paint a simple lavender motif on one
side of the bags. Let dry completely.

3. Scoop or pour lavender buds into the bags, filling almost to the top. Leave just enough room to sew the open side shut.

4. Sew shut, using tight blanket stitch...or any other sturdy stitch, so long as it will keep the lavender from spilling out during repeated dryer cycles.







Throw into dryer with laundry. The sachets will infuse your linens or clothes with a soft scent of lavender every time you use it. Lasts up to ~50 cycles.

















*Not to worry, friends, I begin work first thing come January as a nanny to a delightful eight-month-old, Anna. It's a great career change, and it will provide me with a lot more free time in the future, as well as unburden me from a lot of unnecessary stress. Yay!