Monday, January 25, 2010

Eco-Friendly Gift Bags

One of the Etsy teams that I'm on is The Daily Sweets. The group was formed when it accepted Chrissy of Bittersweeets.etsy.com 's challenge to create an item a day beginning April 15th, 2008, to May 15th, 2008 with the of improving activity in shops.

At the end of the challenge, the group decided to continue. While each person may not always list an item a day, the goal is to create every day.

So, keeping this challenge in mind, I took a few vintage children's books I had and transformed them into gift bags with my sewing machine. This particular set of bags is from a book about Aesop's Fables.

I hand-cut the top of the bags, and used a paper cutter to trim the edges evenly. I machine sewed along 3 edges to create the bags.

After listing the bags in my shop on Etsy, two (out of 3) sets were immediately sold. Then I received a request for a custom order of 45 bags from a customer in Australia! Needless to say, I was happy with the positive response to this new product.

Between these bags made from vintage children's books and the fabric gift bags that I also offer in my shop, I plan to continue making eco-friendly items that creatively reuse items that may be destined for landfills...and reduce the impact we have on the environment.

3 comments:

Theresa MacNaughton said...

These are amazingly gorgeous! I LOVE them so much words can't really express how I feel about them!!! You are incredibly talented and crafty! :) Theresa #263

Jenn said...

That is a really neat idea...I would love to do this for our christmas gift bags one year! :0)

kat said...

the bags are so sweet!