Mini Tote Bags

This year for my daughter's 8th birthday, the girls will be making glitter fairy jars, necklaces and decorating picture frames as activities during the party. So instead of buying run of the mill "favor bags" I decided to make these little tote bags, so they can take everything they made home and have a new little bag to add to their (extensive, I am sure) collection. My daughter is excited :)

Of course, there are many tutorials online for making tote bags, this is just my way. As they are only favor bags, these are not lined, but after you trim your seams they will look nice inside. 
Once you have all your pieces cut you can do a little chain piecing and be done in no time. It took me just a few hours in one afternoon to make these 15 bags.

One sweet thing about them: I used scraps left over from the quilt I made my daughter for her first big girl bed 5 years ago as the contrasting material at the bottom of the bags.

Here is the final product...

What you need:

For one bag
Finished size is about 9" tall by 9 1/2" wide

- 2 10" x 8" pieces of your main fabric (I used a quilters white on white print because it's inexpensive and cute)

- 1 8" x 4 1/2" piece of contrasting fabric (here I used the left over fabric from the quilt) 

- 2 10" pieces of ribbon

Contrasting or coordinating thread (in addition to your usual thread)

Dimensional fabric paint and letter stencils for the finishing touch.


Start by sewing the two pieces of main fabric to the contrasting fabric over the 8" sides.

Press the seams to one side (I like pressing towards the main fabric because that's where my extra seams with contrasting thread will go, reinforcing that line.)

With right side out, sew a line on each side of the contrasting fabric with your contrasting thread. I used a wavy stitch.

Close the envelope by folding it in half and sewing the two long sides together. Make sure your seam lines match on the sides, for a neater look when finished.

Box the bottom of the bag so it will look like this.

(if you don't know how to do it, the page SoSewEasy has a really nice video tutorial that teaches you 3 methods of doing this.)

Turn the bag right side out. Fold the edge in by about half an inch all around and press. Position your handles like shown in the picture and secure with pins. I cut the raw edges of the ribbons with pinking sheers so that I could leave them on the outside, but you can make finished edges or hide the edge under the fold inside if you prefer it that way.  

Sew all around the opening with a decorative stitch in your contrasting thread. With this step you are fixing the handles and finishing the opening.

I finished it by stamping each girl's initial on the side of the bag and hanging a thank you tag with another piece of ribbon.

Tah-dah! Done. Nothing ground-breaking, I know, but a cute little alternative to the plastic or paper disposable bags we are used to.

Ah and here is that quilt I made my daughter 5 years ago. Notice some of the butterflies and flowers are made from the same fabric as the bottom of these bags :)

Thanks for looking. 

Please feel free to ask any questions and have a look at my Facebook page Quilts By Deda.