Mon 5 Apr 2010
Hybrid Crafts: Design Your Own Reusable Shopping Bag
Posted by MissMint under Hybrid Crafts , Tips & Tutorials[10] Comments
Aloha! Joscie Cutchens here with another Hawaiian hybrid idea!
I love using reusable bags for shopping and I bought a bunch from the grocery store… but they are not cute and I wanted to make some minty ones! I created this design in PSE using Peppermint Creative Fat Plastic Alpha – Aqua, Custom Vector Shapes – Bracket Mats 1, Patchwork Princess Elements, Patchwork Princess Paper Pack and an arrow shape from the PSE custom shape menu. Once I got my design how I liked it, I printed a test copy onto plain paper.
I was happy with the result, so I printed a reverse copy on iron on transfer paper from Office Depot. Following the directions on the package, I let the design dry, trimmed down and then ironed it on to a plain white t-shirt. I cut it out with pinking shears and machine sewed the design on to the canvas bag from Wal-mart ($2.50). I added a running stitch with purple embroidery floss around the edge, a few felt flowers and a button from Making Memories, and a little ribbon made it complete!
A couple of quick notes: At first I tried to iron the design directly on to the canvas bag, but was not satisfied with the faded look it gave me. If you are looking for a worn look, you may like the look of directly ironing the design on the bag- and it’ll be faster! Also, when machine sewing I ended up with a little puckered area in my fabric that I covered with the flowers. Sometimes a “mistake” can lead to something better creatively!
I hope you’ll try it out!
Joscie, rhymes with bossy!



April 6th, 2010 at 1:25 am
Oh. My. Goodness. That is simply brilliant! I have like 10 of the reusable grocery bags already – do you think it would be hard to sew onto that mesh stuff they are made out of??
I’m totally going to try this out!
April 6th, 2010 at 2:48 am
I like the design you created: the non-traditional recycle colors usually used for such a thing, the stamps in the background, the nice arrows, the bracket mat shape. Also the cool sewn and pinked-edge look.
April 6th, 2010 at 4:25 am
very cool Joscie
April 6th, 2010 at 11:02 am
Well, that is just too stinkin’ cool!!! =) Love it!
April 6th, 2010 at 2:31 pm
Thanks ladies!
Tiff, I think if you are going to machine sew on to a mesh-ish bag, you might want to keep your stitch length longer. but otherwise, it should work out. Share your results with us, we’d love to see! :)
April 6th, 2010 at 7:49 pm
Very cute! I would never have thought to use the products that way.
April 6th, 2010 at 9:53 pm
Wow what a great project! So clever. Thanks for sharing.
April 16th, 2010 at 2:01 pm
Were can I pick up this design. I LOVE it and want to do it for some earth day gifts.
Thanks for the great Idea
April 16th, 2010 at 5:42 pm
Oh,you should run right over to DST and post this in their boards in honor of earth day! Great publicity for Peppermint Creative, and you’ll reach a ton more people with this uber cute way to be earth friendly!
orachel54 at yahoo
April 22nd, 2010 at 12:32 am
I just finished 4 of these for presents tomorrow!!! Thanks So much for the great idea