Church Mother's Day Gifts

If you remember from previous years, my church usually gives out gift cards for Mother's Day. We're a small church, so it works for us. I like to make a little something extra to go with the gift cards, since we all know that they're worth a lot more than they look like. Who wants to spend that kind of money and have it look cheap??

Well, this year I settled on wallets for the mothers. I took my sewing supplies (and all my thrifted zippers) along on vacation the week before Mother's Day and hoped to find some nice sheets or fabric in my thrifting adventures that week. I was not disappointed! I found a big bag of decorator fabric remnants, most likely from a professional's sample book, for just $2.



This is the style of wallet that I made. They look a lot harder than they actually are. The zipper is really easy to put in these - much easier than putting zippers in clothing. I ended up with 2 pockets (for cash, receipts or a checkbook), a zippered section for coins, and room for 6 credit cards.



These fabrics were all the same print, just different colorways.



And here they are from the back, lined up so you can see them better.



Then I took the bigger remnants and decided I wanted to make some bags. I had three fabrics, so I cut enough pieces from each one for an entire bag, then mixed and matched.



Whatever print went on the bottom also went into the straps and the lining.



These were a huge hit! I even liked them so well I wasn't sure I wanted to give them away ... but I did. :)

I also pulled out a few of my stashed rag quilt purses to get us up to the 14 gifts that we needed to house the gift cards.



But they were so popular on Mother's Day that I needed a few more gifts for the mothers who were sick. (Amazingly enough, we had just enough for the mothers that were present.) I also wanted to make something for the single ladies of our church who never get recognized since they're not mothers.

So I took another decorator fabric from the same stash of thrifted fabrics and made four of these wallets. It's a different design, with no zippered section. I ran out of zippers.

So there you have a Mother's Day gift idea, if you're inclined to sewing. The bags are quite simple, so you don't need a lot of sewing experience for them. I'm actually teaching my Sunday school girls how to sew them right now. There's a basic tutorial for this type of bag on the DIY Network here, if you're interested.

Update: For those who asked about wallet patterns, here are some great, simple ones:
a quilted wallet
a basic wallet with no zipper from Talin's Corner
a basic wallet with a zipper from Bluebird's Wing
and another basic wallet with no zipper from The Rubber Punkin

If you're not inclined to sewing, my friend made some beautiful gifts for her church ladies, too. They don't require any sewing. You can see her tea favors here.

So, what did your church give out for Mother's Day this year? Any ideas I could use for next year? :)

I'm linking to Fiber Arts Monday and