Sunday, June 29, 2008

Start a Family Tradition and Make ReUsable Gift Wrap

My sister Cathy suggest to me a few years back to make fabric gift bags for wrapping Christmas gifts. My first thought was, "Oh my gosh, that isn't practical with 8 kids. I'd have to have a ton of them." Then my sister Stacey sent my kids party bags from her boys birthday party and she used fabric bags to put the goodies in. My kids loved the bags and have used them for lots of things so far.

So last year for Christmas I started making a variety of sizes of fabric gift bags. I just use Christmas fabric and then because I know my kids, big and little, try to peek through the wrapping, I line mine with flannel. They turned out cute and they were nice for the kids to carry their gifts home in. So these are some of the ones I made last year.

This is a Valentines Bag and my sister Stacey wants some spider man bags for her boys birthday presents.

I was thinking that Furoshki would be great for those gifts that don't fit into bags.

I think these bags are going to be a nice Christmas Tradition. The kids will look forward to getting them out every year and they will be so much easier for me, besides being environmentally friendly. I usually end up wrapping everything and this will save me a lot of time, once I have the bags made, and I can always use more time at Christmas! I am using Michael Miller fabrics for some of the bags and then I think I'll buy some cheaper gingham and plaids for the rest. I can't afford Michael Miller fabric for all of the bags but I LOVE his retro Christmas fabrics and since these will last a long time I figure I can make some out the more expensive fabric for a few of the bags. I am using penguin fabric for one of my daughters, Precious Moments for another and so on and so on....... This is some of the fabric I bought for this years bags.


Anyway, I just wanted to share this idea with everyone. I wasn't crazy about it at first but after trying it out, I love it!!!

7 comments:

mysteryhistorymom said...

Your bags are darling!! Lori

Unknown said...

When a friend of mine first told me about the bags, I thought, "We will really miss the crumpling noise of the paper." However, we didn't miss it at all. In fact, it was awesome! Everything was so calm and quiet and afterwards, we didn't have a mess of paper to pick up. My kids picked out the cheap fabric for our gifts and special fabric for Santa gifts. I look forward to using them every year.
Sherry, your bags are gorgeous and I love the lining which we didn't do. I am excited to pull all the bags out again this year.

Unknown said...

I love the michael miller retro fabrics too! I did stockings for a set of grandkids using them. the bags are really nice! Melinda

Marcia said...

Brilliant idea! I love the retro fabrics.

Anonymous said...

I ran across your post while searching for fabric gift bags. Love your fabrics. Hadn't thought about lining them - but that's a great idea.

Angela Harris said...

What a GREAT idea. The fabric gift wrappers are GENIUS! Someone should get to making those in an Etsy shop b/c I can not & do not want to sew. Great for people who are conscience of the waste they create and will save tons in wrapping paper. Thanks for sharing!

Unknown said...

http://goodbyegoods.blogspot.com/2008/07/birthday-bags.html
My friend Darcy posted in her blog the other day about gift bags also. She shared the idea with me originally.
We recently had a corn flour bag that is so cute. Once the flour was gone, we washed it and plan to add it to our birthday bag collection.

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