A Tale of Two Name Tags...

In the past month, both the BMQG and the SMQG asked members to make name tags so that we could get to know each other and new members better.  As usual, I trolled Flickr and Google images to find some cute inspiration but I also pawed through my growing scrap bag and pulled out the few scraps I had left from Heather Ross’ Far Far Away “Princess & the Pea” fabric.  I had originally made this skirt for my oldest and only had a few wide strips left, but the print is so cute that I wanted to keep any extra. 

Typically, I don’t love working with orange, but the love of the print outweighed the tangerine hesitation.  It’s a fairly small scale print, so I thought it would be cute to use for a name tag!  I fussy cut the little princess close to my embroidered name and added borders to each side that featured all those stacks of mattresses. 

It seemed a little bare after that, so I also appliqued on tiny swatches of a crown and shoes.  Cute! 

Slap on a binding and all looks good! 

 

Until…I stopped for a millisecond to consider the size.  This is supposed to be a name tag.  My finished size turned out to be more like a huge stinking pocket.  Sigh.  I considered just adding on a ribbon lanyard and slinging it around my neck, but to be totally honest, I didn’t love the whole look as much as I thought I would when I was putting it all together.  It was cute, it just wasn’t totally ME. 

Hmph.  Back to the drawing board.

I still had one tiny scrap with a Princess on it, so I kept her and the white background and decided to make things a little more colorful. 

 

 

I love a rainbow theme, so I found the tiniest 1” swatches of my favorite scraps in each major color and ROYGBIVed it with tiny white sashing. 

 

 

Instead of a binding, I just sewed all the way around and then topstitched.  And yes, I know that my corners stink - I'm always afraid that I'll poke holes in my fabric, so I went more for the rounded corner look.  I was a little paranoid that it would still be too big, but I think the size is perfect at 3 x 4.5 inches. 

 

 

I loved this finish so much more - it feels much more like my usual style, so it's coming with me to meet Alyssa Haight Carlton today. Hope to see you there!