Paper Bag Gift Ornaments

As expected, here is a gift wrap tutorial for all of you! These are cute little gift bags that can be hung as ornaments on your tree (if you so choose) or you can leave off the ribbon and just have a little stack of them off to the side. Mine are filled with Hershey's kisses, but they would be great for any small gifts such as barrettes, Match Box cars, etc.

To make these yourself you will start by selecting your paper and cutting it to size. You can make these any size you want, but I chose to make 8"x5" rectangles. It leaves plenty of room for candies :)

Next, fold the 5" edges of your paper together. Do NOT make a hard crease in your paper, just fold so the opposite edges match up, then sew them together (if sewing isn't your thing you could also use glue, but sewing looks so cute don't you think? I chose to add in a ribbon to this edge so I can hang my final project.

Once you have the first edge sewn, you will sew shut the top edge. Simply fold your paper so the edges match up evenly and sew!


If you are making a large batch of these, you may want to make them all through this step, then stuff them and sew them shut at the end. Or you can continue on and make each one start to finish one by one.

To finish, fill your paper package with your little candies, gifts, etc. then fold the bottom of your package to make a little pyramid type shape by lining up the center of your paper with your first sewn seam! Ta-Da! Nice little 3-D paper tree ornaments filled with gifts!


While I haven't made one yet, I plan to try some of these with fabric and close one edge with velcro or a zipper so they can be re-used. I will let you know how that turns out :)

Tiny Gift Bags

That's right everyone, it is February, and starting off the month full of projects are these cute little gift bags!

I have a few birthdays coming up this month, as well as Valentine's day, and these bags are perfect to fit a little something special in for the lucky people in your life. (They are also a great way to use up your smaller pieces of fabric). They will easily fit jewelry, a small bag of candies, lip gloss, a watch, cuff links, etc. and can be made with any fabric or ribbon you want. I happened to have a couple complimentary patterns with blues and greens, and leftover red ribbon--I think it adds a nice contrast.

Each bag measures about 4 inches square (I started with fabric scraps that were about 5.5"x9"). I folded a flap at the top and sewed it down so a ribbon tie could be used, then sewed the bottom and side shut(leaving the holes open to insert my ribbon). I generally use a safety pin when making a tie like this, just pin one end of your ribbon and feed it through the hole to the other side and pull it through.

These bags could also be fancied up by using two fabrics and making the bags reversible, but for such a tiny gift bag I decided not to over complicate things and stick with one pretty side (you're stuffing it full of treats anyway, so the inside will probably be overlooked by your recipient).

I hope you enjoy these little gift bags, and remember every day this month I will be featuring another fun craft project!