Saturday, February 27, 2010

Reusable bag tutorial

It’s been a couple days! Sorry! So many great things have been happening!
1. I got my Cricut – and I’ve been having SO much fun!
2. I got my Gypsy – and been having fun on the go!
3. I have the great talents of some fabulous people joining our store!! I will introduce them in a minute!

But first I want to show you this tutorial on how to make reusable bags. They are great – and so versatile. Use them to pack lunches with, make up bags, travel bags to put soap or shampoo in. Plus, they are SO easy.

1. What you will need:
  • Some fabric. I made a snack bag so I only used a little bit of fabric (I think mine was only like 6 x 6 ")
  • A zipcloc bag in the size you would like to use
  • sew on velcro (because of the plastic make sure it is the sew on kind!)2. You are going to cut the side of the side (not the bottom!) and also cut of the zip top. Make sure you cut as close to the zip top (I'm not sure of the technical term for it) as you can. Do you see my Cricut in the background? :)
3. Open your bag up and trace it on the fabric (I trace mine on cardstock to have a stencil ready. You need more than just 1 little snack bag right?!) :) Cut out your fabric and fold it in half with the like sides together.
4. Place your half folded bag on the top half of your ziploc bag (you will see a groove dividing the baggie in half). When you unfold your fabric you will have the plastic lined up evenly with your fabric. Pin in place.

5. Sew around the baggie. You are going to sew pretty close to the edge. 6. You will have 2 'flaps' of fabric on either side. Fold those over and pin into place. This is where I'm not sure what I was thinking when I was taking pictures! After you pin down your flap. Cut a piece of velcro. It should be longer and almost fit the length of the bag. (Look at the 1st picture with an open bag if you are worried about the length.) Center it and pin it on your flap. Sew the flap down (sew right through the velcro). Then finish sewing the velcro down. This will make sure that you have nice clean lines. I was so worried about taking pictures that I forgot the velcro! I had to add it later which made it harder to sew in there!

7. Fold your bag in half right sides together and sew up the sides. Don't forget to backstitch! :) Then turn it right side out and ta da. Your bag is complete. Easy huh? You can put a decorative stitch on the outside if you want. They also look neat with initials or other appliques added. Obviously you would do that before you sew on the plastic way back in step 3!

4 comments:

  1. what a terrific idea! lovely!
    thanks for linking- next time, would you link to the specific post instead of your main blog page? I was a little confused when reusable bags didn't come up. thanks! :)

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  2. Neat idea!! Those hats are amazing and I love the eye spy bags!

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  3. Great idea!! Thanks for linking @Creative Itch's "Sew Cute Tuesday"!!

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  4. So cool! I can think of all kinds of reasons to make some of these..now if only I had a sewing machine! :)
    ~Bridgette {allthingzrelated}

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