Recycled Gift Bag

Sometimes I hate seeing how much trash we have as a family of five. There are often days that we use an entire trash bag in one day. Lately I'm trying to throw less away. I'm saving anything glass and trying to at least let my girls play and destroy with anything cardboard. Now if I could just figure out what to do with those pesky CapriSun packages.......

I also hate buying gift bags because they cost so much now and they just get throw away! So I decided to make a gift bag out of CapriSun packages. I've made purses out of the packages before but never a gift bag. Plus after you give the gift, they can use it as a tote or purse.

I made this one for a little girl that was receiving a tea set and needed a medium sized bag for the gift. It required about 27 packages to sew. No matter how hard I tried to keep all the juice packages after the princesses drank them, a lot of them went into the trash on accident and a few of them were actually left in the backyard because the princesses thought the dogs would like some juice. At the last minute I discovered that I was a few short and had to tear apart the house looking for stray packages.

I simply overlapped the edges and used a zigzag stitch to piece them together. It was an easy project but required a lot of sewing machine needles because they dulled or broke easily. Plus my sewing machine being a direct descendent of satan didn't help the matter.

I used large pink rick rack to make a girly handle and it was done! Quick and easy! Green and good for you since CapriSuns are preservative free.