A Beach Sketchbook, Posted by Maya Diehn

 hi I am Maya me my mom and brother are going to the beach. I asked my grandmother if she could make me a book to put all the things i saw and did in at the beach and she said yes. I love my new book and i will make sure it stays safe. So if you want a book to care for then order it right here right now and I am telling you you will love it. I am sure because i know I do and so don't thank me just for telling you thank my grandmother.

Sneak Preview: A Bigger Small Bag

We love our tiny small bags, but sometimes we need a slightly larger bag, something big enough to carry a standard size (or larger) wallet, a smart phone, clunky keys, a sketchbook or notebook, a few pens, a calendar, a checkbook, a folded-up reusable grocery bag, a pack of gum, a few makeup items, a passport, and a small book, and a small set of watercolors.  Well.  Clearly a larger bag was needed!  So we've made a couple of prototypes.  This one measures 6 1/2" wide,  8 1/2" tall, 2" deep, and has a sturdy shoulder strap that works either cross-body or on one shoulder. 

I've been using this bag for a couple of weeks now, and have noted the following modifications that need to be made:  the small pocket on the front needs to be about an inch wider so that it's easier to retrieve the phone that slips in there;  the elastic band that closes the three layers of the bag needs to be of the heavier variety (the small one is stretching out very quickly as I am usually filling my bag to capacity and the opening is sometimes 3" wide) or perhaps longer.  Another possibility is to use a Velcro closing on the back inside pocket and use the elastic band and button to close off only the wide middle pocket and thin front inside pocket.

Fran has been carrying hers for a little longer, and she's noticed that the bottom part of the strap needs to be double (as it is on mine) for strength and security.  We've both gotten favorable comments on our bags, but we want to make sure they work well and last well before we put them on the market.

That said, if you would like to bespeak one to try out, email us at weRpiecework@gmail.com and tell us what materials and colors you would like and any special features you think might be good to have (the outside pocket on the back?  a second outside pocket on the back? bigger? smaller?).  We will probably sell these for $25 when we get the bugs out, but for now, if you want to be on the design team, we'll make yours for you for $18, and after you've tried it out for a month, we'll either make any changes you (or we) have deemed necessary, and send you the new (or revised) bag for free.

Act fast, though!  We can only offer a position on the design team to FIVE people, and it's on a first-come basis.  (We are also working on a carry bag for iPads as a separate R and D project.  We don't have a prototype for that yet, but when we get one, we'll let you know.)

Bright Wallet for a Dark Bag

A friend recently gave me some zingy yellow, green, red, and black Chock Full 'o' Nuts coffee bags and asked us to make a Shara-style wallet-with-notebook for her out of them.  Happily, a few were left over, because the next day one of my favorite cousins asked me to make her a bright-colored wallet because she carries a "deep, dark purse" and wanted something that would be easy to find in the dark basement of the bag.

 This material is one of my favorites now!  We still have enough to make two wallets, so act fast if you want one!  If you order one, write in the comments section of the order page "Chock Full o' Nuts", or send us an email and order it that way.

Secret Compartment!

We've been quiet on this blog for a while now, but we've been busy in our studio.  We've had an unusually high number of orders for the past three months, which is fine with us; and we've also been working on some new modifications of our most popular designs.  One of these modifications happened by accident while we were working to find a better way to make flaps for coin purses.  We had been bothered by the tendency of clear plastic flaps to begin over time to tear in the right angle that formed at the junction of the flap and the back of the coin purse.

I had been carrying a Teeny Weeny Shara for a couple of months, and I had noticed the slight tear in my coin purse flap.  So we took the wallet apart and tried out different ways of doing the flap. It occurred to us that the tear seemed to happen only when the coin purse was made of clear plastic, never when it was made of woven plastic.  After testing various materials, pulling them and twisting them and trying to rip them apart, we had a bolt-of-lightning insight:  the real problem was the right angle!  And we could easily get rid of that devilish angle by making the flap separate from the body of the coin purse. 

In figuring out how to sew the body of the coin purse on beneath the flap, we saw that if we sewed the bottom of the coin purse as well as the bottom edge of the flap to the body of the wallet, we would no longer have the nice little extra pocket at either the top or bottom of the coin purse.  We decided we could live without that little extra slip-in pocket in the interest of having a flap that was secure and not prone to tearing.  Then we noticed that when we sewed the bottom as well as the bottom of the flap down, a second, secret compartment was formed inside the coin purse!

The drawing above as well as the photo show the existence of the two pockets.  My grandson Jacob suggested we make the flap on his wallet solid so that no one could see that there was a second compartment under there.  We liked that idea for his wallet, which had a solid red coin purse.  But for wallets like the chicken one above that have designs on the front of the coin purse, we need clear flaps to avoid cutting off the chicken's head with the solid flap.  But here's a solution:  we will put a Velcro strip inside the top of the secret compartment so that it stays closed until the owner pulls it open. 

One more thing--  if you are the owner of a Shara that develops problems in the coin purse flap after a few months, send the wallet back to us and we will fix it.  Email us for return shipping details.  Satisfaction guaranteed!

Sweet Sweet Potato Wallet

A customer dropped off a couple of sweet potato chip bags and asked us if we could use them to make her a standard wallet.  The material was not one of our usual ones, so we pieced it in with some proven materials, and here it is! 

And when you open it out, there's a whole sweet potato from a different bag.  We added a reinforcement patch at the vulnerable double fold spot, and it looks like one of the chips.

We welcome bags from you as well as ideas for what you want us to make for you out of the bags.  As we've said before, we love a challenge, and new designs are our favorites.  (When we're working with new, untried materials, we will replace your wallet for free if it develops problems within a few months of purchase.  We do our best to reinforce and strengthen the materials, but we can't predict how materials will wear.  Hence our Free Replacement policy for experimental wallets.)

Where Our Buttons Come From

Today was a dark and gloomy winter day.  We were working hard to fill some recent big orders.  At one point we spread out all our button baskets on the kitchen counter so we could scrabble through them more easily as we searched for the perfect button for each wallet.  When we spread out the baskets it was as if the sun had come out.  The rich colors of the buttons reminded us of spices in a marketplace; so we took this picture to show you some of our button collection as it lit up the studio on this cloudy day. 

We get these buttons from all over.   Many of them are donated to us by friends who have old button collections.  We find others in flea markets and antique stores.  Most fun of all is finding old pins and bits of jewelry and other odd things in among the old buttons.  One of my favorite finds was a set of old shorthand and typing speed contest pins.

Sketchbook Wallets are Here!

For several months now we've been playing around with making sketchbook or journal wallets out of our recycled materials.  We've sold a few to friends.  Yesterday I made a new one for myself, and it's posted here.  The journal behind the new one is an opened-out old one from several months ago.  If you want to talk with us about designing one for you, email us at weRpiecework@gmail.com.  We can make them any size and shape you want, with or without pockets, coin purses, or other options.  They are most similar to our Shara wallets, and they cost between $19 and $25, depending on whether you want us to sew in the paper or just make a cover into which you can slip your own paper.