Christmas in July Guest Post- Hot Pad Clutch with Sweetness of the Everyday

Often, when it comes to Christmas gifts, it is trying to find the right gift for each person that is the hardest. You want the gift to be personable, but if you’re gift list is long, it also needs to be time sensitive. 

This is where your Hot Pad Clutch would be most useful. It is very versatile, and completely customizable- all the while- taking an hour or less to finish. 

-1 hot pad (with loop) 

-snack sized baggies (4-8) {I used 6 for this tutorial}

-goodies to fill the baggies

-buttons

-needle

-thread

-sewing machine

First, decide what you want the inside/outside of your clutch to be. 

I chose the inside for this clutch to be the floral print, with a plain purple for the outside. 

Keep your “inside” facing up & your hot pad loop on the left while working. {This loop will be used as the closure for the clutch}

Then, begin to stagger your snack baggies like this: 

I always try to keep the baggies from being much wider than the hot pad, and with this technique you’ll get several different sizes of baggies which is nice for all the different goodies. 

Then at this point, you will use your sewing machine to sew a line right down the middle of the baggies. I used a small zigzag stitch which seemed to work fine. Just hold the baggies down, and try and keep a steady pace while your sewing the line so the machine doesn’t get stuck on the baggies. {I’ve made several of these and haven’t broken any needles or anything, the machines are stronger than we give them credit for!}

 Then, layer another set of baggies over the sewn set. This time, you’ll sew either to the left or right of the first sewn line- for this clutch I sewed to the right next. (Unfortunately there is not a picture of this step) 

Then, sew your 3rd and last set of baggies. Sew to the left of the first sewn line this time.  {Sewing three different lines keeps the clutch from being too bulky, and gives you several different sizes of baggies.}

Here is the inside of the clutch after sewing all 3 sets of baggies- if you look closely you can see each sewn line. 

Then, the next step is some trimming. Once the baggies are sewn, there is some excess bag that I just cut off. 

I just cut as close to the sewn line as possible. I like to do this step to take away some extra unnecessary bulk from the clutch. 

Then, you’ll just fold the clutch in half, and sew a button in the appropriate spot so the tab of the pot holder can close around it. 

This is where the fun part comes in! Now you get to fill it with little goodies. A few ideas for what to fill your clutch with could be:  a personal hygiene kit for the car- filled with bobby pins, nail clippers, gum, tweezers, tooth picks, chap stick, even gum or hard candies. Also, you could do a small first-aid kit with bandaids, neosporin, alcohol swabs etc. There are so many more things you could fill the clutch with, these were just two simple ideas to get your brains going 🙂 

Let me know how it turns out and any fun goodies you filled it with! For more craft tutorials check out my blog: Sweetness of the Everyday.