So, I purchased two striped placemats on clearance a while back that I intended to fashion into some kind of simple bag; however, I had struggled through the mental design process many times and repeatedly came up short. Turns out I was making it more complicated than necessary…

Recently, I noticed that the big book stores are carrying a bunch of cute magazine totes that are oil cloth/plastic. Of course, I couldn’t bring myself to buy one… and the placemats turned out to be the perfect size, so…

Voila!

With some dowels I found at a garage sale earlier this summer and some cotton cord, I had a simple, easy, and cute magazine tote. The only thing I did to the placemats, besides sewing them together, was fold down the top corners and sew them down.

The little crocheted embellishment was actually an extra piece of lettuce and one tomato for a crocheted hamburger that I had made a while back. I just added some blue, stitched them together, and added one of my vintage garage sale buttons. I really must have sewed the button on well because I already caught Olive trying to pull the button off with her teeth – ack!