NCM Post - A Day Late - St. Patty's Pouch

I'm not going to have all the ingredients for this project listed exactly as it was made for last St. Patty's day, however, from the picture you can see the different colors used and if you're planning on making one of your own, you can use what you have on hand.

What you don't see in the picture is that there is a small paper bag involved. I started with a small white paper bag, approximately 4" wide and cut the length to 4" also. The front and back of this pouch are drink coasters. You know sometimes you see something in the everyday world that is being used by crafters and you think - gee, what a great idea - and then you wonder how you can get your hands on those things. My brother Michael works in a restaurant so I asked him if they used drink coasters and he said "yeah - what do you need those for?" This is what I love. Trying to explain to a non-crafter what you're actually going to do with something when you don't have a visual example and you're not quite sure what you're going to do with it, only you know that you want to have it on hand so you can do something. Well, the next time I saw him, he handed me these two packages of some promotional coasters that he "found" where he works. I'm not asking questions about it - only saying thank you. Of course you would think that having such a nice supply of these wonderful things that I would be using them daily, but alas, this, so far, is the only project that I have used them for (but don't tell Michael because then I'm sure he'll tell you about the restaurant size pickle jars that I wanted one Christmas that are still in my basement!).

Well, to go on with the description - I used SU's Print Pattern background stamp in green ink on white cardstock. Stamped the little clovers (is it a clover because it has 4-petals and a shamrock if it has 3? Inquiring minds want to know!!!) in darker green ink, see I told you no specifics, in between the diamond pattern, and then trimmed the stamped image to coaster size, 4 x 4. Then I glued the trimmed paper to the printed side of the coaster, so you'd never know where they came from - no, because who wants to see the printed side when the stamped side is so much more..... original.

When you use these coasters, keep in mind that the corners of the coaster are rounded and although we know that they are 4 x 4, sometimes, even though you're vvvveeeerrrrryyyyy careful, the edges of your covering paper might not exactly line up. So what do you do about it? You take a sanding block, or an emery board, or a small piece of sandpaper, and after the glue has set, you sand the edges to give it a little bit of a distressed look that will hide the mismatched edges and soften the corners.

I cut another piece of the stamped paper to use as the closure and glued one end of it to the center top of the coaster that would be the back of the pouch. On the front, I had used the key tag punch in dark green and the small oval in lighter green to make the front closure. I had some stick on shamrocks so I put one of those on the top of the oval and attached the closure to the coaster with some light green flower brads that I also had. I didn't want the coasters pulling away from the bag, so beside using glue, I also used eyelets to attach the coasters to the front and back of the bag. The flap from the back just slides in behind the front motif. I probably should have added some ribbon for a handle - but I didn't - you could. And inside, there was a card (which I can't seem to find right now) and an Irish tea bag, and I think there was a bag of Lucky Charms in there.