Kids love goodies! - How to make your own party bag

In case you don't realise yet, a BIG event is coming up in November. And when I say big, I mean B-I-G.

Yeap, 21st November is a very important day. Guess what? It's little Angel's birthday!!!! Nothing gets more important than your child's birthday once you become a mum, right? I mean, well, Christmas, New Year, Valentine's Day, your birthday, and your hubby's birthday are still-important but yet not-so-important days anymore. It's when your child turns another year older, meaning you had survived yet another bravo year of parenthood, that you would want to put your heart and soul into celebrating this special day, for your beloved little boy/girl, if not for anyone else.

So, last year, Angel had a rainbow party. This year, it's gonna be a DISNEY party!

Well, since party bags (or goodie bags) are an essential part of any party, I had decided to make my own bags for the kids who are coming to my party. It's not only a good way to save money, more significantly, it is one of the best ways to add a personal touch to your party. And that, is what I always love.

So, here's the making of my own party bags.

What you need:

1) Construction paper (weight preferably 160g/qm or so). You won't want your bags to end up as stiff as cardboard or as flimsy as cling wrap.

2) Long ruler

3) Scissors

4) Glue tape/ Double sided tape

5) Ribbon

6) Skewer (Or anything that is cylindrical, trim and sharp at one end)

Firstly, you need to determine the size of the bag since it can vary greatly. For me, I had to insert a 8" by 5" colouring book so I would need a bag that is tall but slim. So, I used two pieces of A4 paper joined together at the longer sides. To stick them together, simply roll the glue tape along the length of one paper and place the other over. Then, push down firmly on the glue tape from left to right, make sure the paper does not crease and that the two pieces of papers are in line. 

You could also use A3 paper, or bigger, if you do not wish to go through the hassle of sticking the smaller pieces together.

 

Next, join the papers at the other end. To do this, simply fold the paper into half but leave a small gap of approximately 1cm at one end. Apply glue tape on this 1cm length and fold it inwards. The bag should now be closed at both sides.

Fold both sides in and press down firmly, using a ruler to slide across as shown. How much to fold in depends on how wide you want your bags to be. For mine, I folded in 1", which was roughly the width of the ruler, thus making it easy for me to do the folding. Honestly, I don't measure and make little marks for every bag I make, if not it might take twice as long. When you have a attention-seeking toddler, you need to learn to fully utilise your free time, which works out to 1.5 hours a day, for me at least. 

Open up the fold and push the middle part in, as shown above. Again, use the ruler to flatten the fold and press it down firmly. Repeat on the other side.



Your bag should now look like this from the top.

To close the bottom, firstly make a big fold, approximately 2.5 times the width of your side fold. For my case, it would be 1" x 2.5 = 2.5". Press the fold down flat with the help of the ruler.

Open up the fold and you will see a triangle as shown on each side. Open up the top and bottom sides and push down on the right side, ensuring that the middle line of the triangle is in line with the middle line of the fold.

Next, carefully fold in the side as shown above, pressing down gently but firmly. Repeat the same for the other side.

The bag now looks like this. We are almost there!

Next, apply glue on the bottom part. Be sure to apply only on the two triangular areas, not the middle area, if not you will be gluing your bag together and have a problem opening it up later.





Now, apply glue on the top part. Unlike the previous step, you should now apply glue on both the triangular areas and the middle part so that your bag can seal perfectly.



This is how the bottom part should look like. The body of the bag is now done!

Check to make sure that the bag opens up well and that there are no glue remains inside. You don't want your guests to find their candies stuck inside the bag, do you? 

To make the handles of the bag, poke two holes using the skewer on the top part of the bag, in the middle area away from the folds. How wide or how narrow you want them apart is up to your own aesthetics, but make sure they are evenly apart from the both the left and right side.

Depending on how long you want your handles, cut two ribbons of equal length. For mine, the ribbons were about 25cm long each. You can also use strings or twisted rope and if they are thick enough, you can use a hole puncture to make the hole instead of the skewer.

Insert the ribbon through one of the holes. If you do not have delicate fingers, the skewer could come into good use for this.

Tie a double knot at one end of the ribbon and repeat for the other end. Do the same for the second ribbon on the other side of the bag.

Voila! You have just created your own bag!

Depending on the theme of your party, you can personalise your bags to be one of a kind in the world in just a few more steps. For instance, since I am going to have a Disney party, I decided to add Mickey Mouse shapes and customise each bag to the names of the kids. Their names were printed in Walt Disney font!




All I did was to cut out the Mickey mouse shapes on black paper, print out circular shapes with the kids' names on, cut and stick them onto the Mickey mouse shapes. Finally, I pasted them onto the bags.

There you have it! My party bags for Angel's Disney party! All done and ready to go!

See, it's really quite easy to make your own bags and I love the sense of achievement I get when I see the finished products, not to mention that I now have the most unique bags in the world for my most special guests at the party.

I'm not even bothered by the fact that most of them might jolly well take out the goodies, crumple and throw away the bag thereafter. I'm just thrilled to know that they will be able to see a present waiting for them at the party, with their names on which hopefully makes each of them feel special. Because every kid in the world deserves to feel special.

For more craft ideas and DIY tutorials, visit my gallery here.