Bridesmaids Gifts - Part II

Prior to the wedding, I shared one of the gifts that I made for my lovely bridesmaids.  In addition to the fascinators, I also made for them clutch purses and a quick little "survival kit."

To make the clutches, I began with this tutorial posted on Craftster.  I used a couple of fabrics from Heather Bailey's Nicey Jane fabrics and a coordinating green.  In the end, I modified the tutorial quite a bit:

• I reduced the width of the purse by about 3 inches.  I, personally, hate a large clutch.  I find them unwieldy. 
• I ditched the pleating on the backside.  It didn't seem worth the effort. 
• The tutorial instructs one to cut out regular rectangles for all of the unpleated panels.  I found that they didn't lay flat, so I cut the top edge of each of these panels to mirror the angles of the bottom of the handle panels. 
• I changed the construction method entirely in order to avoid having to topstitch the edge.  Generally speaking, I try to avoid topstitching at all costs as I have no faith in either my or my 35-year-old (and never once maintenanced) sewing machine's ability to sew a straight and uniform stitch.
• Finally, I added a fun fabric flower! 

I churned these out like a machine.  In the end, I made one for each of my six bridemaids, one for each of my two coordinators, one for our singer, one for my mom, one for Michael's mom, and one for myself.  Wow.  I'm just now realizing that that's 12! 

For the survival kits, I whipped up some little pouches using the fabric I had used for the lining of the purses. I stuffed them full of essentials--lip balm, Shout wipes, oil absorbing sheets, tissues, pain reliever, bobby pins, gum, and bandaids--and added a label I printed out on cardstock.