Chalk Fest Bags

Kim cuts thru piles of donated jeans

This July is the 5th Annual Perry Chalk Art Festival in downtown Perry. For the three years that I have been involved with the planning committee, I have been working with Kim and Felisa to make denim bags out of discarded blue jeans. Their daughters help with the bag painting but they were at college this year so Kim also lent her painting skills to the mix.

For the last 2 Saturdays the girls have met at my house to work on the bags. Remember that I said these are discarded jeans - some have stains and others have holes in various places but then there are also the frayed seams that lend a "rustic" touch.

wouldn't they also make neat catchalls?

We cut strips from the legs, make a box seam at the bottom, add a cuff or use the frayed seam and had a ribbon or cord for a handle. Our chalk dude logo and "Chalk Perry" is added with fabric paint. Later we will stuff these with chalk and other supplies for our artists to use during the festival. Leftover denim parts are being saved this year so we can create some other items for sale.

I have no idea what my giggles were about here...

It's hard to be serious when you're having fun: we broke out a bottle of dry Riesling and there were frosted brownies and rhubarb upside down cake for later!

phooey - Felisa smeared it