Shopping Bag Makeover

I confess, I’m not a big shopper.  I actually do much of my shopping on-line where I can ponder my purchases with no make-up and a cat on my table. When I do go shopping though, I love when the clerk wraps my purchase in pretty tissue paper and puts it in a little shopping bag. This reminds me of a time when a purchase was something special; both to the shopper and the shop.

As much as I love these little bags, I do struggle with their place in an environmentally conscientious world. I think about the trees or the chemicals that were used to make the bags and I feel a bit guilty about my fondness for them. Each bag I bring home gets added to the collection in my ‘reuse cabinet’. Surrounded by packing pillows and an absurd number of collapsed Amazon boxes, they sit and wait. The blank bags are easy to reuse, provided I remember, but the bags with logos have established permanent residence in this cabinet.

That’s about to change.

 

A few sheets of scrapbook paper and fun embellishments are all these shopping bags need to rock it as super cute gift bags.

This paper shopping bag almost went in the recycling because it was so wrinkled but then I thought – why not iron it? It worked really well. Just remember, you can only iron PAPER bags not the plasticy coated ones.

Make sure the bags are in good shape and remove any ribbon/cord handles that will be in the way.  Then, measure the height and width of the front/back and sides of the bag. Subtract 1/4″ from these measurements and cut your coordinating pieces of scrapbook paper accordingly. Run double-sided sticky tape (my favorite is Scor-Tape) right along the edges of the paper.  Add a few more pieces to the middle for good measure.

Fold the side pieces in half before sticking them down. This helps the bag retain it’s ability to fold.

If there were holes for cord handles on the bag, you will need to make new holes through the scrapbook paper. I used my Crop-a-dile to do this.

Finally, add a few little embellishments or fun tags for the perfect finishing touch.

And Voila!

No more store logos – just super cute gift bags

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