Fancy Gift Bag

Hey everybody!  I want to show you an easy way to dress up a plain old brown paper lunch bag and make it into a gift bag!  I have made these before but for this one, I added in a Lil' Stem ruffle along with some Lil' Bloom embellishments from Punky Sprouts.


Here is what you need:
*Paper Lunch Bag
*2 Pieces of Patterned Paper
*Glue
*Lil'Stem
*Lil' Blossoms
*Small Square of Velcro

1. Cut the top off your bag so that it is 6" tall. Mine is 5" wide...check yours and adjust the measurements I give here!

2. Cut the pp you want for the front of your bag to 5" (width) x 6".
Cut your other pp to 5" (width) x 8.5". This will be the back and front flap of the bag.
Cut a 5' (width) x 2.5" piece for under the front flap to hide the pleats.

3. Now you are going to fold the bottom flap of the lunch bag down. Like this:

 

 
4. Glue the front onto your bag...this goes on the side without the flap. You want to line up the bottom edge with the bottom edge of the bag...you can always trim at the top if you need to.


5. Grab your piece of pp that is the back and score (or fold) it at 6".

 

6.Take your Lil' Stem and pleat it.  I glue mine as I go to hold it all in place.  This doesn't have to be perfect (as you can see!).

7. Glue this pleated strip to the underside of the flap...this is the piece that you scored.

 

8. Now glue the 2.5" piece to sandwich the canvas in between the 2 pieces of paper.

9. Glue the back on. Line up the scored flap with the top of the bag. There WILL be a lip at the bottom...you want that! It will make your bag stand straight when we're done. 

9. Add a piece of velcro on the flap to hold it down. Your bag is finished unless you want to add some decorations!  I added a few different sizes of Lil' Blooms.  I chose to leave all my canvas natural but you could also mist them for some color!

 Here are a couple shots of the finished bag:

School Portait Solution

This is my newest Punky Sprout album using the new Teenie Beanie Sprout.  I used the blue and pink Authentique lines to do a book for my kids' school portraits.  I never knew what to do with them...as a stay-at-home-mom, it seems they are always with me, so I don't even keep a copy in my wallet! :)  We have the current year's picture on the wall but this way we can look back and see them grow!  I decided to do it by grade instead of year...so that I could see what each kid looked like at the same age.

I wanted to keep this super simple because I know the kids will want to flip through it a lot and I just felt that I wanted the focus to be the portraits.  Since the paper is pretty busy, I kept the embellishments to just the numbers and a little punched strip.  The numbers for each grade are from Bella Blvd and are white.  I used my Copic Markers to color them.  On each one, I used 3 different shades and blended them together.  This was my first time using Copics and I have to say that I now know why so many people are addicted! :)

 The Lil' Petal banner pieces are some of my favorite Punky embellishments but they were much too large for me to spell out school on the cover of this little album.  I learned this little trick from Punky owner Shelly!

Take the bottom tip of the triangle and fold it up to the top.

Cut along each side of the folded up triangle.

Then cut the remaining diamond in half.

You just made one banner piece into 4 mini banners!

Easy Valentine Gift Bag and Flower Tutorial

 I did this tutorial for the February Scrapdango Newsletter and thought I'd share here too!  Let me know if anything doesn't make sense and if you make one I'd love to see it...link it up!  I'm linking to 30 Days' Pity Party for the first time today!


Supplies:
*Paper lunch bag
*Patterned paper (1 or 2)
*12" ribbon
*Pages from a book
*Scalloped circle punch (mine is about 2")
*Velcro
*Mist

1. Cut the top off your bag so that it is 6" tall. Mine is 5" wide...check yours and adjust the measurements I give here!

2. Cut the pp you want for the front of your bag to 5" (width) x 6".
Cut your other pp to 5" (width) x 8.5". This will be the back and front flap of the bag.

3. Now you are going to fold the bottom flap of the lunch bag down. Like this:


4. Glue the front onto your bag...this goes on the side without the flap. You want to line up the bottom edge with the bottom edge of the bag...you can always trim at the top if you need to.


5. Grab your piece of pp that is the back and score (or fold) it at 6". Then punch 2 little holes on that score line.


6. Feed your ribbon through these holes, tying knots on the inside to keep them in place.

7. If you have a border punch, now is the time to punch the top flap.


8. Glue the back on. Line up the scored flap with the top of the bag. There WILL be a lip at the bottom...you want that! It will make your bag stand straight when we're done. You can tuck the ribbon under the pp if you want.


9. Add a piece of velcro on the flap to hold it down. Your bag is finished unless you want to add some decorations!


Let's make a flower to embellish the bag!
1. Punch out 6 scalloped circles...non-scalloped work too. So do hand-cut circles that aren't perfect! My circles are about 2" across.


2. Spray all of the circles with the mist...you want them pretty covered and wet! I have found that Glimmer Mist works better than the Smooch for this. The Smooch dries a little to fast but it will work. If it dries too fast, you can just mist with some water! The Smooch does give a richer color too! I used Smooch here. (from the Spice kit!)


3. Now, stack them all up (yes, they're wet and yes, you're going to get messy!) and attach with a brad. I usually just poke it through without punching a hole.


4. Scrunch up each circle, one by one, like this:


Until it looks like this:


5. Now just sort of fluff out the circles until you are happy with how it looks.


6. Cut some leaves (I used a coffee sleeve) and mist if desired.


7. Attach your leaves and flower to the bag flap! And there you have a wonderful treat bag...perfect for Valentine's Day treats!

Semi-Homemade Lollipops and Treat Bag Toppers

This is a little tutorial that I did for Scrapdango's 12 Days of Christmas with a Twist! If you join in and make it be sure to post it here to get your name entered in a drawing for one of Scrapdango's kits!

Today's project is a 2 part one! The first part is in the kitchen! We're going to make lollipops out of Jolly Ranchers! There is no twist for this first part!

Supplies for Lollipops:
*Jolly Rancher Hard Candy
*Lollipop Sticks
*Little Treat Bags
*Baker's Twine or Ribbon
*Parchment Paper

1) Preheat oven to 250.
2) Line cookie sheet with parchment paper.
3) Choose 3 Jolly Ranchers and place them next to each other on the parchment paper. This will become your lollipop! If you are making more than one, be sure to leave plenty of room between each lollipop...they will spread!
4) Put in the oven for about 8-10 minutes...until melted! Be sure to keep checking them! It takes a while to start melting but once they start, they go pretty quickly!5) Once completely melted, take out of oven and IMMEDIATELY roll the lollipop stick into candy. Roll the stick so the part in the lollipop is completely coated. They do harden fairly quickly so don't dilly-dally! ;)6) Let Cool
7) Place the cooled lollipops into the treat bags.
8) Tie with ribbon or baker's twine.9) Put aside and make treat bag topper below! :)

Here's part 2...the treat bag toppers! There IS a twist for this part...Use only black and white and one other color! :)

Supplies:
*Cardstock
*Border Punch
*Letter Stickers or Thickers
*Button and Thread
*Stickles
*Baggie
*Staples

1) Cut your cardstock piece 6 1/2" x the width of your baggie + 1/4" (my baggie was 6 1/2 wide so I cut it 6 3/4)
2) Fold in half the 6 1/2" way
3) Use your border punch on the front edge.
4) Trim of the back so it is just a bit shorter than the punched front.
5) Spell out Happy Holidays with you letters...but leave off the "O"
6) Thread button and adhere it in place of the "O"
7) Use an exclamation point from your letter stickers to make a your button into a lollipop!
8) Decorate your stickers with stickles.
9) Staple your topper onto the baggie****Here is one really important tip: Make sure your lollipops fit into your baggie before making your topper! Not that I know from experience or anything! :rolleyes: My lollipops were too tall for my sandwich sized baggie but of course I had already made my topper for that size baggie! So, I simply cut about an inch off of the stick! :D You could also just move the stick farther up in the lollipop when you are making them!

And one more idea...if you are just giving one to someone, just put their first initial on the bag! Gives it an easy personal touch!

I hope you guys get a chance to try these...they are so simple and fun and yummy! :D

Pretzel Rolo Turtle Thingies

This is one of my favorite go-to recipes! Everyone loves them and they are SO easy! A little time-consuming just because you have to unwrap all the Rolos but I just put the kids to work! They work very cheap...a rolo each and all the broken pretzels they want! :)
Here's what you need:
RolosPretzelsPecan Halves 1) Line a cookie sheet with pretzels. I fit about 70 per sheet.
2) Unwrap rolos and place them on top of each pretzel.3) Bake for about 3-4 minutes @ 250. They need to be melted but not goo! They get a bit shiny when they are ready.4) After taking them out of the oven, immediately squish a pecan half into the Rolos. This pushes them down and spreads them onto the pretzel.5) Cool and eat! I needed mine to be pretty firm quickly for transport so I popped them in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

I made about 150 of these today to give to Tadd's runners. It took probably about an hour but you could probably cut that to half an hour if you didn't have 2 little helpers! :) But aren't they cute!?!?