Great gift idea - Make & paint a tote bag

Love these projects that transform a plain cotton tote bag into stylish accessories and you will find instructions on how to make a simple tote bag in our Craft - Sewing section. This is an affordable DIY gift idea for any occasion and a unique idea for kitchen tea or baby shower gift bags.

 

You will find instructions on how to make a simple tote bag here. Cotton, linen or bull denim are the best materials to make up the bag. Use a pencil eraser as a stencil for the design. Dip the eraser into your choice of craft paint colours or fabric paint.

Cut out a heart shape in a sheet of paper to use as a template and to keep the outer line of the heart shape nice and clean. Visit V & Co for more information on this project.

 

 

Here's another painted tote bag, done ombre style. I found this one on for the love of and just loved the girly colours.

Andrea mixed up her own combination of paint colours. You can use craft or fabric paints. Place a piece of cardboard inside the bag to prevent paint seepage.

There's a little trick to this project, and it involves using wax paper. Cut out the shape for your design and iron the paper wax side down onto the bag. Now you can happily paint away without worrying about seepage around the edges.

What a great idea...!

Over at a subtle revelry they use an ombre paint effect to make party favour tote bags. Rather than a stencil, masking tape is applied to the front of the bag to create the striped effect.