Cheapskate or Pinterest Inspired?

Eh, well, I'll tell you that I try to avoid Pinterest, and you probably figured out I was a cheapskate three or four "thrift store grab bags" ago, but I hope this could be mistaken for some Overachieving CraftMom project.

Basically, it's time to start getting ready for Back To School supply runs.  I knew we had several things on the list for fourth grade already (we're set on 70 page wide ruled notebooks for the foreseeable future), and I thought of how many crayons and markers and colored pencils we had...especially those that were brought home, barely used, at the end of last school year.

And, yes, really, this isn't a case of being a cheapskate, because none of these items cost much.  It's far more a case of "look, if we already have them, why do we need to buy them over again, 'cause that just seems wasteful."  I just couldn't think of a pithy way to set that against Pinterest in the title.  (And there's also the fact that I started making a shirt for the kiddo using Burda 9419 and hadn't stitched much of it together before I realized I really wanted a button band, so today's sewing may have been spurred by procrastinating on that design alteration.  Again...not pithy.)

I have an excess of zippers, including a lot of vintage models with metal teeth, and I had a bit of somewhat heavy clear vinyl that was salvaged from the cover of a sample book of interior decorating fabric, and I had a bobbin still loaded with "jeans gold" from that enh skirt I made somewhat recently (which I'm wearing today.  It's not as bad as I thought it was.)

I was not, however, enthused about cutting that vinyl.  Using scissors was out, unless I wanted to draw lines on the vinyl first.  Using a rotary cutter didn't appeal, because I know I'm not exactly skilled at using those.

Then I remembered this thing

which is made for cutting paper and poster board and just things in general that are significantly thinner than the vinyl I wanted to use.  Still, it scored the vinyl in a lovely straight line that then allowed the vinyl to be gently pulled apart along that score.

And then I completely obscured most of those lovely straight edges with some decorative zigzagging

They are lovely and straight, though.

I sewed this one first, forgetting to swap the regular needle for the vinyl needle.  When sewing the zipper, it seemed like absolutely no problem.  When sewing vinyl to vinyl...yeah.  I definitely swapped the needle after.

The narrow zigzag around the edges is slightly for decoration and mostly to try to keeps the ends of the zipper tapes from fraying.  I probably won't see these things again until the upcoming school year ends, so that's when I'll find out if it worked.

I could have used 'normal' cloth for these, but I thought "being able to see what's in the bag" would be appreciated.

And they do kinda look cool.

The crayon bag is constructed differently from the others.  The last large bit of the vinyl had the interior decorating fabric collection name printed on it.  Since the kiddo likes green, I decided to turn the letters to the inside (they're somewhat visible from the back, but, in real life, not as much as they are in the upper photo) and let the green background bar become a graphic element, and I wanted only to fold it over instead of cut through it.  I also didn't have any zippers the right length to go along the side of what was left, and I did not want to shorten a metal zipper, so I trimmed just a bit to make it work with a 4" zipper on the short end.

Since these are sewn in a way that feels inside-out, it was no problem to set the zipper into the ends of a folded piece of vinyl.  Then the sides were flattened and sewn.  Taadaaa!  Crafty or frugal?

...well...both, of course.