Reusable Fabric Gift Bags

I used to not mind wrapping gifts. This was when I didn't buy that many gifts and certainly before I had a kid. Last year, I bought cute wrapping paper, bows and ribbons and was determined to wrap every present beautifully. Five hours later, my back hurt, hair was sticking out everywhere and I wanted to never see wrapping paper again.

So imagine how excited I was when a co-worker showed me these fabric reusable gift bags that her mother-in-law makes. I realized I would much rather spend 5 hours sewing once and never buy or wrap with paper again.

As it turned out, it only took maybe a couple hours of sewing to make six bags. And, because it's right before the holidays, I was able to get Christmas fabric for 60% off at Joann's (around $3/yard) and Christmas ribbon for 70% off (around $0.60 per spool/9 feet). Each bag cost less than $3 to make. Paper gift bags tend to be $1-3 anyways and really only can be reused a few times before they rip or just look sad.

These bags are so simple!

1. Take a large piece of fabric and fold it (with fabric inside out) over so that the edges line up (it's not important that they are perfect, just lined up enough to sew together). 
2. Sew the sides together as shown below (if you are folding the fabric differently to get a different size, use the left seam for the fold and sew the bottom and right sides together)
   
   
3. On the top of the side that was not completely sewn together, flip the raw edge of each side and sew a seam to keep the edges from unraveling. (see photo below)
   
4. Then flip the top edge inward twice to make a casing to pull the ribbon through. (This is hard to describe without a video, but a Google search for how to sew a drawstring bag will yield many results with better directions!)
5. Attach safety pin to end of ribbon, pull through, tie off and done! I also burn off my edges very slightly if the ribbon is synthetic to keep it from unraveling. 

For larger bags, like the top (peppermint) photo, I got two bags out of 1 1/4 yards of fabric. For the smaller bag, like the striped one, which is about 14" x 16" finished, I got 3 bags out of 1 1/4 yard of fabric. To give you some idea about how much these fit (which is a lot), the reindeer bag at the very top of the entry has 4 doll boxes (barbie-sized) in it, and I could probably fit another 3-4 in there. 

I also made sure I got darker and patterned fabric so that the presents couldn't be seen through the fabric. 

I have 3 additional fabric cuts (enough for another 6-8 bags), but I think I'll wait until next year to make the rest of the bags.