Upcycled Treat Bag

This guest post is from Lolly Chessie.  She has a fun and easy idea for upcycling a brown paper bag into a fabulous treat bag!

Hi everyone!  My name is Lolly Chessie and I am thrilled to be one of the first guests on Julie's Holidays Handmade week of fun!  Today I am going to be sharing the easiest and fastest gift idea ever!  You can prolly raid your pantry and your massive stash of paper craft goodies and whip up a few of these in NO time at all!

Let's get started!

Because I have been super slammed with crafts, teaching and working the past few weeks... I kinda had to cheat here.  I knew I wanted to make a cookie bag but simply had no time to make any cookies...

Soooo... Thursday evening on my way home from work, I grabbed a container of cookies to use as the display part of this project...

Low and behold...  Sunday morning rolled around and I spied my box of cookies on the counter... looking a little how shall I say it...  lean?!?!?! 

With the whirlwind of teaching I have been doing since Friday, I kinda forgot to mention to the husband that these cookies were actually for a project...

oops...  he's been munching on them ALL weekend long!  I am just glad he left me a few for the project or we'd be looking at a bag of dog bones!

Now that the drama part of the post is out of the way...  let's move on to the crafty side of things!

I started with a simple brown paper lunch sack.  You can usually get about 100 of them for around $2.00. Keeping the sack closed, trim the top off the sack so it's 6 inches tall (from the bottom).  I used a scallop rotary trimmer to make a cute edge!

I then inked the inside edge of the bag with some Distress Ink in "frayed burlap"...

Once all of my edges were inked, I rolled a simple 3/4 inch cuff at the top of the bag!  Those inked inside edges when turned down help set off the cuff from the main portion of the bag!

I then gathered some of my scrapbook supplies and went to town on creating a little scene for the front portion of my bag!  I used embellies and papers from the Basic Grey - Jovial collection and a piece of holly trim that I found at my local Walmart!
 

Once you have everything glue down you have a cute little scene for the front of your bag!

I took a gusseted food safe plastic bag and placed it inside my decorated brown paper lunch sack...

...and then stuffed the bottom with a dish towel because I did not have enough cookies to fill it up to the top because certain unnamed husbands had themselves a cookie eating contest over the weekend...!

I tied the plastic bag tight with a nice thick piece of cording and...

...there you have it!

The possibilities are endless with this project!  It's a great way to use up a ton of leftover bits and pieces from your stash and creates a super cute and afforable gift you can give to your friends and family!

Thanks so much for joining me today!  I hope you all have a super happy holiday!

HUGS,

Lolly

I live in the North Texas area with my husband Ron and our 3 dogs (Dog, Charlotte and Harriet). I work full time but spend tons of time outside of my job in my craft room! I started painting rocks with my mom’s oil paints when I was 4 and doing ceramics and pottery with her when I was 5. I love to combine many different mediums in my projects and adore layers and texture too!  I find inspiration everywhere I look and keep a little book with me at all times so I can quickly sketch ideas before they fly away into la la land!!! Thanks for having me as a guest, Julie!

Blog: Lolly Chops