I’m not certain I would go as far at to call this a make-up bag, but it DOES corral the sundry of lip glosses and tiny sunblock tubes rattling around the bottom of my purse.

You see, it all started because of these adorable zippers I saw on Amazon. I mean, THEY HAVE STAR CUTOUTS! So I did what any logical person would do, I purchased a pack of 50. Getting the right “formula” down is going to be a challenge. Usually when I sew a zippered pouch, the zipper gets sandwiched between the front/back/interfacing then I sew some topstitching. Nay, nay. I can’t sandwich the same and still see the cool cutouts. So, I sandwiched the front/back/interface, sewed, then topstitched. Sewed the visible zipper on, THEN sewed the inside of the bag like normal, complete with a little boxing of the base.

The result is meh to use. My zipper sticks a little at the bag edge, and getting the bag body to line up around the visible zipper was a messy challenge.

Next time, I’m going to stitch up the whole bag, then add the zipper at the end. OF COURSE I could do 5 minutes of research on how to do an exposed zipper RIGHT, but what is the fun of avoiding all the trial and error that comes with just wingin’ it??

But as most things go, the reason I had my sewing machine out was to stitch up some masks for my kids’ school. Our state’s mask mandate is still in effect, and kids are still in need of masks. I have cut and sewn the first set of stitching to 18 masks. Which in the grand scheme of things doesn’t sound like a lot. There are about 500 kids in the school! The front office secretary knows me as “the lady who made all the masks for the school”. I guess there are worse things to be known as.

This weekend, I’m going to finish up the sewing/pressing/washing so I can add the final touch, adjustable ear elastic! On Monday I need to swing by the school, so I want them to be ready.