Getting ready for June craft shows

I found some nice display racks at a garage sale today. I have this week to fill them up with soap totes and wallets. Here's what they look like.

Expandable mesh in billboard vinyl

I have been designing different mesh patterns for my soap totes. I decided to create an expandable mesh using cuts designed in Adobe Illustrator, then cut with Sure Cuts a Lot and the Cricut Expressions machine. its a real simple cut pattern as you can see, and it produces diamond-shaped holes.

I am enthusiastic about the possibilities, from garden fencing to bags, to oversized-soap-bar totes. I wrapped the sample around an applesauce jar jusst to see what would happen. A bunch of this mesh would be good for packing or storing glassware, and it itself does not take up much space when not in use, and is reusable. Better than wrapping stuff in newspaper, IMHO.

Bubble Mesh Soap Tote

Here is a soap tote that I designed with a bubble mesh and a bubble font. Seems appropriate.

Three Soap Tote Designs

A soap tote is a bag made out of recycled vinyl, that has an inner mesh drying sleeve that hangs down when drying, then folds up for storage and travel. The loop can be hung on anything that is handy, even a tree branch when camping. I have been working on designing the mesh, then harmonizing the design to go along with the mesh. That is why the fish scale mesh has a gold fish ornament. The bucking Bronco one is rodeo themed because the Calgary Stampede is coming and visitors to our city might like this sort of souvenir. If you notice I have incorporated the bucking bronco into the mesh.

Koi pond soap bag

I started thinking that the soap bag pattern needs some downsizing. Back to the Illustrator file to do some trimming.

Goldfish soap tote

Pardon the quickcam shots, my husband has the camera. I added the goldfish to go with the fish scale mesh.

Reinterpreting a Design

I decided to revisit the original soap tote design and replace the mesh with a mesh that was inspired by the shirt that Rachel Ray was wearing on her show a few days ago. This is just a prototype but the gist of the design is there. The position of the design elements needs reworking, for sure. What was I thinking?

Anyway, there's much less sewing on this design and no zipper so it goes together much faster. I'm going to make a bunch of these and market them at local craft fairs in June.

Sorry for the blurry photo, my husband has the proper camera.