Engleberts in Missouri [miz-er-ree]

Last weekend, while one child was burning her life to the ground driving her future into a ditch deciding to drop out of college for a while, another daughter and I were blithely crafting away.

I had run across these totally adorable I Spy bags on  Alpha Mom and I had a burning need to make one for my grandson for Halloween. Violet and I headed for the crafting mecca in our town Hobby Lobby to pick up supplies.

Basically, these are bean bags with a vinyl window. They use a teeny tiny amount of fabric - the 1/2 yard I bought was waay too much. They also require bean bag filler and vinyl. I decided to buy a yard of vinyl which comes on a bolt 60″ wide because I needed a 3×3″ square of the stuff. You could use rice instead of the filler but I like the little poly beads. I like these poly beads so much that I bought 3 bags and only used about 3/4 of one bag. I am a craft supply abuser.

Why is there a broom in my picture? Because that’s the way my husband rolls.

These bags also require a lot of little trinkets. Surprisingly, there just aren’t that many halloweeny type trinkets out there. I bought some novelty buttons and cut off the shanks. I settled for about 20 items plus the letters of Alex’s name.

I decided to make one for my niece Cecelia too because I thought “she’s at the age to enjoy something like this”. Little did I know that there is no age that isn’t attracted to the I Spy bag. Steve, April and Violet all liked playing with them - alot - I wasn’t sure I’d ever get them back.

I added a photo of the trinkets hidden inside, since my grandson and niece aren’t readers yet, as well as a printed list that the moms could use to tell them what to find. I think they turned out pretty well and I want to make a more generic one with about 50 items in it.

While we were at the Hobby Lobby picking up crafting supplies, Violet fell in love with this cow material.

Little did I know that her love of this cow fleece would burn fiercer (fiercer? is that a word?) than a fiery sun. Her desire to possess this cow fleece was just about life threatening - she swore she’d do anything- anything Mom! in order to convince me to purchase it - so I did.

She spent the afternoon putting together her cow blanket and then spent the rest of the day snuggled up in her cow blanket.

She loved making her cow blanket so much that she’s decided to make a business out of it. Her initial business plan included giving several blankets to her friends at school to entice their parents into buying blankets of their own.

Each blanket is 6 feet long with two lengths of fleece. That’s 4 yards of fabric at about $9 a yard. Or about $36 just in material. How will she pay for all this fleece? A small business loan from the bank of Dad and Mom, of course. Um…no.

Ok then, how about if we buy the material for 1 blanket and then when she sells it she can use the money to buy material for the next blanket. Eventually she will sell enough blankets to make a tidy profit and pay back our initial investment. Um…Umm….

****WARNING - SALES PITCH AHEAD - READ AT YOUR OWN RISK****
Who would she sell these blankets too? Why you of course! Her loving family! Violet is sure that you will love her blankets. They are really warm and cuddly. And what a deal - Violet will make you the blanket of your choice for the cost of materials plus $5. Just think, you could be cuddled up on your couch just like this:

How could I not promote these blankets when she swears she will use the money for college and not for useless trinkets, toys and junk? Exactly.