Hi everyone! My name is Tiffany and I’m so excited to be here for The Giving Challenge! I’ve been sewing for about five years now and truly love the joy it brings to not only me, but to those around me too. When I saw the Instagram post asking for writers for this month’s theme, I knew I wanted to jump in and write about a plan I had to give back to our small military community.

My husband, daughter and I live on-base in a pretty large military town. The neighborhood that we live in is a fairly small, tight-knit community which is incredibly important to us since we live so far away from our family. Military life can be stressful and unpredictable, so oftentimes small acts of kindness can make a huge impact on the families here. In an effort to constantly improve the quality of our neighborhood, each year our residents fill out a survey giving suggestions of ways to enhance our housing community. One of the amazing suggestions this year was to install a Little Free Library where families can donate books they no longer need and in turn pick out some new ones for their kiddos.

Our family will be moving in just a month and I’ve been trying to think of ways to use up some of my fabric stash before we pack everything up. When I saw our new little library I thought it would be a great idea to make up some little tote bags for the children to take their new books home in. I have an excess amount of woven fabric so I jumped in right away and started sewing up some cute little bags.
Sew a Tote Bag – Easy Beginner Sewing Project

I let my daughter pick out some fabric from my stash and I chose to use this super simple tote bag pattern from MellySews. I decided to make my bags more square shaped and went with a 14″x28″ piece of fabric for my main bag pieces. I also omitted the pocket (because I’m lazy!).

I used my serger and sewing machine and whipped up these three bags in just under an hour! Talk about a quick, satisfying project!

I designed these cute little tags on my Silhouette Studio software and attached them to the bags with some string so everyone would know they are free to take home with their new books.

Then my daughter and I headed out to our little library and stuck the bags inside for their new owners to enjoy!

I can’t think of a better project for this month. Teaching my daughter how little acts of kindness can really brighten someone’s day is a great lesson for this November. We loved being able to give something small back to this awesome community that we have called home for the last three years.
Giving projects don’t have to be big or expensive to be meaningful: you can always use what you have and give back in small ways too!
Happy Giving Season Everyone!
Tiffany Stewart
Tiffany is a self-taught sewist, a military wife, and a girl mom. She lives in North Carolina and enjoys sewing clothing and buying too much fabric. When not sewing, you can usually find her reading a romance novel under a warm blanket. Tiffany can be found on Instagram @mamamadestyle.
Such a thoughtful and generous thing to do. Love the matching mother daughter tops (my mother used to do this when I was young).
This is so lovely, I’m sure the lucky recipients would have been so grateful to see the bags! We have a library like that in our town, I might just think about making something like that from my stash 😉 thanks for the inspiration