Alright. For those of you who are keeping tabs on my crafty aspirations, the countdown to Christmas has seriously begun and I am craftin’ it all up, up in here.

As a quick refresher, I’m trying to make something like this:

Having received a fistful of coupons from JoAnn’s Fabrics in my email on Friday, we took the 45-minute drive to the nearest store in Dover, Delaware. (Yes, things are so pathetic here on the Eastern Shore of Maryland that we have to travel to DELAWARE to get our hands on the good stuff. Like “Blizzard” and “Anti-Pill” fleece “solids and prints.”)

Alden and Kato came with me to choose the appropriate “snuggly” fabric for their respective nests. I also discovered that there are things called “notions” – little buttons and baubles and plasticy things you can sew onto whatever you’re sewing. I like that they’re called “notions,” like it’s some sort of crazy idea in your head that shouldn’t really be taken seriously.

Alden chose a remarkably un-disgusting brown flowered fabric. She also selected some notions that actually go quite well with the crazy idea sense of the word: sparkly jewel butterflies, a hot pink feather boa, pink pom-poms, and a variety pack of ballet-related buttons that includes slippers, hearts, roses and (inexplicably) one of those scene-clacker-thingies from the movies (again inexplicably) in pink.

I’m afraid I had to nix several of Kato’s first choices, which were all emblazoned with licensed Disney and Pixar characters. I debated in my head why I needed to be all draconian about it (why should I care?) but became exhausted at defending myself and defending Kato in the same mental argument, and settled for a monster pattern on a brown background. Kato’s notions included a brown fringe that will (hopefully) give the edge of his bag a twiggy look, a colorful assortment of bug buttons, and (as an allowance [in my own head] since I was being such a jerk about his fabric choices) a bunch of non-thematically-related cupcake buttons.

MY nest is going to be very nest-like: a simple brown spotted fabric, the same twiggy brown fringe as Kato got, some green lace, and a clip-on bunch of tailfeathers for my bird clip.

I found a tutorial for round flat-bottom bags online here, though must admit I don’t understand most of it (what’s a “fat quarter”? what’s a “gathering stitch”? what’s “math skillz”?). That being said, it gave me the information I needed to calculate the circumference of my bag and the size of the pieces I needed to cut.

I’ve decided to line the bag with some stiff filter paper (I call it “Reemay” but I’m not sure if that’s a trade name or what) – I saw something similar at JoAnn’s but realized I have a huge roll of it here at home, because I use it to pull clay monoprints on. I’m hoping that way our nests will be shaped more like nests than sad little piles of fabric.

Once I cut out the Reemay, I used it as a pattern to cut the fabric. I was going to use my nest as a guinea pig project, but then realized that if time became of-the-essence, it would be better if I had one shoddily-made nest for each of the kids instead of one shoddily-made nest for me and one semi-shoddily-made nest for only one of the kids. Kato’s came first (he’s got lower standards). I decided to use my fabric for the inside lining, since I had more of it than he did.

When I was at JoAnn’s, I bought a new pair of scissors. I chose the kind that had “Designer” printed really big on it, thinking it will make me feel better when my nests turn out all gimpy.

Wow. They cut beautifully. I love them.

Then I pinned everything together, just to see what it looks like.

Hmm. This nest looks more like a bucket than anything. Plus, it won’t really close with the liner in it. So, I’m thinking I’ll cut down the liner a little bit and add the trim bits just at the edge of the liner.

So it will look something like this partway down:

And then when the bag is closed, the trimmy bits will stick up a bit. That’s the hope, anyway. Actually, the real hope is that the kids actually use these to put their toys in. Because, frankly, this is an incredibly time-consuming and expensive way to make something that is completely useless and will just end up under the couch.

So – Kato came in this morning to inspect his nest. He was quite disappointed. “I’m too big to sit in this nest!” he exclaimed. I guess I had neglected to tell him it was a nest for his toys and not for him. He took it in stride, and immediately collected some toys to put in his nest.

He has requested I put a pillow in the bottom of his nest to make his toys a little more comfortable. I will, but I think they already look pretty cozy in there.

If we can keep up the trend, maybe my greatest Christmas wish will come true: corralled toys for all!