These are the photo tote bags that I made for CJ’s teachers as a thank you gift last year. I wanted to give them something personal and useful. I took the photo under the guise of wanting to get a class photo – which was also nice to have. Before printing the photo I added a text box with the teacher’s names and the class year (don’t forget to reverse your image before printing it on the transfer paper).
These tote bags are the extra-large size (about 18″ wide, 13″ high). I tried ironing the 5″x7″ photo directly onto the tote bag (using transfer paper), but the rough texture of the canvas made the photo grainy and it cracked. So I bought some inexpensive white fabric and ironed the photo onto that. I then trimmed the fabric and sewed it onto the tote bag. I sewed the fabric right over my previous iron-on effort (shhh, don’t tell anyone).
I used two different ribbon treatments. On the pink ribbon bag I overlapped the ribbon about every 1.5″ and sewed it down for a ruffled effect. On the orange ribbon bag I framed the photo with the ribbon and stitched it all around. It was much harder to keep the orange ribbon straight. I then accented each photo with a smaller bow of contrasting ribbon which I stiched on by hand. On the back of each tote back I wrote the date and all of the kid’s names with a fabric marker.
The teachers loved their tote bags and I know that one of them still carries hers today. I had so much fun making these that I’m going to whip up a couple more this year for CJ’s current teachers. I think this tote bag would be a nice gift for a friend, or a great mother’s day present. Maybe I’ll just give one to all of my friends this year! What a good way to find out who is reading my blog LOL!
[...] know what you’re thinking – didn’t she already make photo tote bags? Well this is just a variation on the theme of transfer paper, but it did turn out pretty cute so I [...]
Wow – those are so cute!
One of these days I really need to learn how to operate my sewing machine!