Gift Bag Tutorial

Hi everyone, today I am going to share a tutorial that was first shown on the Whiff of Joy Inspirations & Tutorials Blog. I'm going to explain how I make a gift bag by altering a brown paper bag.

Supplies
Block bottom paper bag - mine measures 15 x 30.5 cms
1 x card measuring 18.5 x 15.5 cms
1 x card measuring 29 x 15.5 cms
Border punch (optional)
Bone folder
Strong adhesive


Step by Step

Step 1: Cut down your paper bag so it measures 17.5 cms tall. Fold down the bottom flap and crease well with your bone folder.

Step 2: Take your card that measures 29 x 15.5 cms and score at 18.5 and 19 cms. Fold and crease along both score lines. What you have is the piece of card that will cover the back of your bag, fold over the top and the front flap. If you would like your front flap to have a decorative edge, punch at this point.

Step 3: Add double sided tape or strong adhesive to both sides of your paper bag. Remove the backing tape off one side and adhere your bag to the section that is going to be the back cover. I find it easier to adhere the bag to the card rather than the other way round! You will notice that the bag is a bit smaller than the card, make sure you stick it in a central position and a little card is visible all the way round the bag. This just gives your bag a nice even finish and you don't risk any of the brown bag being proud at the edges.

Step 4: Next adhere your other piece of card that is going to be your front cover to the bag, making sure that the edges match up with the back cover.

Step 5: Now the main structure of your bag is complete, now you just need to decorate it.

Everyone has different creative styles so I am not going to do a step by step on how I decorated my project, but I thought you may find it useful if I give you the dimensions of the card and DP that I used in my example below. In my example I created a pocket in the back to hold a gift tag:
Front panel: Card - 18 x 15 cms, DP - 17.5 x 14.5 cms
Front flap: Card - 15 x 8 cms, DP - 14.5 x 7.5 cms
Back panel top: card - 11 x 15 cms, DP - 10.5 x 14.5 cms
Back panel bottom: card - 11 x 15 cms, DP - 9 x 14.5 cms (punch the top edge of the card to make a decorative edge on the pocket.

Here is the font of my bag. The stamps I used are all from the Whiff of Joy Store Kit Blooming Spring. To keep the bag closed you could either used velcro, a small magnet, tape, ribbon or if you add an image like I have it is quite heavy and holds itself closed nicely.

Here is the back of the bag and you can see how I incorporated a pocket to hold a gift tag. Thanks for stopping by today and I hope someone finds this useful.  Liza x