Patterned Shopping Bag
Difficulty - Easy
Materials
- Brown paper bag with colorful patterns and stiff handles
- Recycled paper raffia
- One Pine cone
- One cinnamon stick broken into two pieces
Instructions
- Cut open the brown paper bag on one side and cut off the bottom.
- Carefully remove the handles from the shopping bag, avoiding tears in the bag and keeping the handles intact.
- Wrap a box in the brown paper. Try to account for any pattern in the paper so it will be visible on the front of the box.
Note: The creases and imperfections in the paper add to the gift's recycled charm.
- Wrap the raffia three times continuously around the box and tie ends together on one the middle strings, leaving a few inches for tails. Don't worry if the raffia crosses on the bottom of the box.
- Cut the ends off of the two handles and untwist the paper into a flat piece.
- Glue the two untwisted handles together at the ends to make it long enough to wrap around the box.
- Wrap the handle ribbon around the box, gluing the ends together on the bottom of the box.
- Tie the raffia tails around the handle ribbon to cinch it together and trim to matching lengths.
- Glue a pinecone in the center of the cinched ribbon and a piece of cinnamon stick on the top and bottom of the pinecone.
Plain Shopping Bag
Difficulty - Easy
Materials
- Brown paper bag with stiff handles
- One sheet of mulberry or handmade paper
- Recycled paper raffia
- Two pinecones
- One large cinnamon stick
Instructions
- Cut open the brown paper bag on one side and cut off the bottom.
- Carefully remove the handles from the shopping bag, avoiding tears in the bag.
- Wrap a box in the brown paper.
Note: The creases and imperfections in the paper add to the gift's recycled charm.
- Measure a piece of the handmade paper two inches smaller than the width of the box and the length to wrap around the length of the box.
- Carefully tear the paper to the measured size to give it jagged edge. To have better control of the tear, use a straight edge on the tear line.
- Wrap the torn paper strip around the box, gluing or taping the edges on the bottom of the box.
- Cut three pieces of raffia the length to wrap around the length of the box plus six inches for tails.
- Wrap the raffia around the box and tie together on the top center.
- Tie the raffia tails around the cinnamon stick and trim the tails to matching lengths.
- Using craft glue, attach the pinecones on the top and bottom of the cinnamon stick as shown below.
Present Pyramid
This is design is made out of folded paper cut from a brown paper shopping bag. This gift will definitely receive a positive response because of its creative and unique appearance. This design can be made large or small to hold a CD, gift card or smaller item.
Difficulty - Medium
Materials
- Brown paper bag with a colorful patterns
- A piece of cardstock or cardboard for stability
- Recycled paper raffia
- One Pine cone
- Two cinnamon sticks broken into four pieces
- Brown shredded paper from a plain brown shopping bag
Instructions
- Cut open the brown paper bag on one side and cut off the bottom using Scotch® Precision Scissors.
- Carefully remove the handles from the shopping bag, avoiding tearing the bag.
- Cut a piece of the bag measuring a 12 inch x 12 inch square trying to account for the pattern so it is visible after the paper is folded.
- On the wrong side of the paper, mark the center point on all sides and draw a line to the opposite side’s center point on both the top and sides of the paper.
- On the wrong side of the paper, fold each corner into the center of the square.
- Cut the piece of cardstock or cardboard the size of the inside square that will fit inside the folded edges. This will give the present pyramid more stability.
- Using craft glue or a glue stick, apply glue to the cardboard square and attach to the inside of paper. Apply glue to the wrong side of each folder corner flap and fold over to secure.
- Cut two 3/8 inch wide pieces of the colored part of the bag the length measuring the diagonal from corner to corner.
- Using the craft glue or glue stick, apply glue to the wrong side of each of the paper strips, especially around the edges. Attach the strips to the paper square on the diagonal, centering the paper evenly on the top folded seam and trimming the corners to match the square.
- Fold each corner of the paper into the center point of the square
- Insert the gift into the the folded square and fill with shredded brown paper made from a plain brown paper bag.
- Cut four pieces of raffia the length measuring from one front side of the square to the other side.
- Apply craft glue to the wrong side of each of the raffia. Attach the raffia pieces to the paper square to each of the folded points and leaving the tails loose at the top.
- Tie the tails together at the center point of the folder pyramid.
- To make the bow, hold the ribbon about 3 inches from the end with your thumb and form a loop. Securing the loop with your thumb, form another loop on the opposite side of the first loop. Continue this motion, holding each new loop with your thumb, until you have 6 loops on each side.
- Tie the bow to the package using the ribbon tails. Separate the loops from each other, fluff the bow and trim the tails to the desired length.
- Glue a pinecone onto the center of the ribbon and a piece of cinnamon stick on the top, bottom and sides of the pinecone as shown below.
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