retirement gift ideas

Here’s the Father’s Day DIY I think I’m most excited about, an upcycled handlebar bag. I’ve been in love with bike accessories lately, they make me want to pedal everywhere I go. Plus they are great gifts for kids, grads, retirees, and just about everyone in between. So I thought I’d try making a couple of my own.
Reflective straps…to show Dad you care.
The bag is made from a water bottle and a used sock (wash it well!)

You’ll need
a waterbottle and an old sock that fits it,
iron-on reflective tape (I found mine at JoAnne’s on the notions wall, surprisingly bike shops didn’t carry it)
ribbon that can be ironed
the closure of your choice (I ended up using parachute buckles along with velcro)
Start by trimming off the water bottle at the length you want. You’ll want to soften the opening by holding a lighter near it, just enough to melt the very edge of the plastic.
Slip the sock over the bottle and position it the way you’d like it to end up. The sock hugged the bottom end of the water bottle  well enough that I didn’t need to do anything more to finish that edge. At the opening of the water bottle, allow a few inches to finish off the bag, and trim off the heel.

I decided to close the bag with a draw string. Take the sock off the bottle and turn it inside out. I reinforced the edge on my sewing machine, then folded it in to make a channel for the ribbon. TIP: I shaped a pipe cleaner into a circle the size of the water bottle opening, then folded the fabric over the pipe cleaner. I left the pipe cleaner in while I sewed the channel, leaving an opening for the draw string ribbon to come out. Once it was done, I pulled out the pipe cleaner and threaded the ribbon through the channel with a safety pin attached to the end.

Cut the ribbon and reflective tape long enough to wrap around the bottle, plus allow several inches to wrap around the handle bars and attach to the closure.

I needed to trim my reflective tape before ironing it on, which I did with my paper cutter. Iron on the tape according to the manufacturer’s directions.
I took my bag outside and tried out the length of the ribbon on the handlebars. I sewed half the parachute buckle on one side, but wanted my other side to be adjustable. I decided to attach the other parachute buckle by sewing velcro to the ribbon. A more elegant solution would have been using a parachute buckle with an adjustment feature, but this worked!
The final step is to attach the ribbon to the sock. I did this in just one spot for each ribbon. With the sock on the bottle still, I slid a piece of ribbon under the sock to reinforce the back where I would sew the ribon to the sock. I tacked the ribbon in place on the outside. Then I slid the sock off the bottle, turned it inside out, and finished attaching the ribbon.

Slide the sock back on the bottle and you’re set. Dad now has a handy spot carrying keys, maps, a granola bar, or if he’s really lucky, a pocket GPS unit.

I’ve thrown together a new gift guides page, incase you’re like me and like to see as many ideas as possible in one glance.

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