gift bags | The Contented Crafter

When my lap top started playing up I retaliated by leaving it alone to sulk and put all the extra time I found I suddenly had into solving the mystery of making gift bags.

The original batch were posted about here

Once the mystery is solved you can get creative – but not without inspiration from others!

I remembered having seen a picture on Pinterest of some newsprint bags with doilies, and I set about making my own version. Here they are all waiting about on the other work bench for whatever happens to them next:

They are so pretty!

The doilies are cut from the die that you can see in one of the open storage cases in my previous post on storing dies.

You know how I love to re-purpose items? In solving the problem of how to keep the bags closed I came up with the somewhat ingenious idea of using bobby pins – decorated and be-ribboned ………. which, of course, then becomes an added extra for the gift inside. [Smiles smugly to self!]

With the trials all completed I set about making up the original order [remember YD asked for some for her Christmas packaging]

Here they are

Close-up – so pretty!

I imagine that when I get my gift on Christmas morning it will maybe look like this:

By then I will have forgotten about them and may well say something like – ‘Oooh, that’s a pretty bag!’ [Don’t judge – it will probably happen just like that!]

And when I look inside the bag I will find this:

Oooh, so excited! I wonder what will be inside that tiny box……..?

🙂

Well, that’s the gift bag saga done and dusted – now I really must get back to the art journal!

Thanks for dropping by today – love that you did!

It’s been 9 days since I last posted – and I’ve also been missing out on some of my bloggie friends doings – due to a lap top that has decided to stage a ‘go slow’. I was even stopped from leaving comments on some blogs I did read by my [former] flat and shiny pal!

I went shopping with YD and priced new computers – its not in the budget, but I can’t imagine life without access to the blog-o-sphere, email or ‘Words with Friends’ on Facebook!

As always happens to me when I go shopping, we ended up looking at something that resembled a small space craft before we realised we had some how gone well beyond our brief and needed to regroup! Now I know what I need and am waiting for the ‘pre-Christmas’ sales to start.

Having told my flat and shiny former pal what is on the cards, today is a good day, and she hasn’t stopped altogether – yet……. so here’s hoping. I’m hitting ‘save draft’ at the end of every sentence just in case.

I wrote a post about a week ago and lost the whole thing when flat and shiny had a major fit and shut down completely and unexpectedly and left me all high and dry….. so I went into the play room and got on with my latest project.

Here’s what my desk looks like – its three photos moving right to left along the length

YD asked me to make some gift bags – I’ve never made them before and thought it would be pretty straight forward – but it ain’t! The first half dozen all have sloping bottoms because I still don’t know how they make ’em without adding a little extra paper across the bottom… Anyhow, I eventually worked out that I needed to seal the base with an extra strip of paper and once that was sorted I raced ahead and produced about 20 bags – here is a small assortment of some that are finished:

This is one for a bloke – no ribbons here, but some lovely jute which has been in my stash since the 70’s when we all made hanging macrame coffee tables 🙂