Homemade Love

So 'we' (I) survived Kindergarten Orientation this morning and many questions were answered putting a few of my anxieties at ease. I only choked up once when the principle read The Kissing Hand. A sweet story about a raccoon who was reluctant to start school and how the mama raccoon kissed his hand and told him her kiss would always be with him. In the end the little raccoon had to give the mama raccoon a kissing hand because the mama was, of course, having a harder time letting the little raccoon go. That's the really short version of the story but you get the idea. So when we got home, I too had to give Ella a kiss on her hand and told her the same wise words as mama raccoon. A little later I asked Ella to wash her hands before eating and she said she didn't want to wash my kiss away. Just one of the many reasons why I love this girl so much.
I couldn't send the little miss off without a little handmade love so here are a couple of really quick projects I did.

Ella picked out a pink and grey (her 2 favorite colors) backpack and I'm going to go ahead and bet she won't be the only girl in her class with a pink backpack. So to make it a little easier for her to find her back pack I made a little name tag for her. Don't worry she won't ever be taking a bus or walking home so the only people who will be reading her name tag will be her classmates and her teacher. First I made a simple hand embroidery.

Next, I backed that with some pretty fabric and sewed a loop of double bias in to attach to the backpack. Lastly, I sewed some plastic around it so that hopefully it will last a little longer.

My next little project was just to give her lunch box a little love. I made a simple drawstring bag to put her little ice pack in. I know they sell cute little animal shaped ice packs, but we have plenty of these plain old blue ice ones that work just fine and we are trying not to be such 'consumers'. It is hard sometimes.
Kind of ugly.
Kind of cute.
I just hope Ella feels the love and remembers she has mama's big smoocher on her hand if she needs it.