Holiday Cards with Brown Paper Bags

Hi everyone, Mou Saha here with some ideas

Mou Saha

for Holiday cards using brown paper bags!

For this card, I started with a lunch bag.

Card by Mou Saha

Let me walk you through the steps.

• Cut the top of the bag to make it even and the bottom to make it small enough to fit on the card.
• Punch a half circle at the top.

• Stitch together scrap paper and fabric and glue it to the front of the brown paper bag.

• Layer tissue to card front and attach the bag at a slight angle.
• Add some border sticker and trim to decorate.
• Stitch bag in place making sure to leave the top open to make a pocket.
• Create a tag with seasonal sentiment to put in the pocket.

• Add a few more embellishments to finish the card.

And here’s my second card. Here I used a mini brown paper bag.

• Attach a wide piece of ribbon to card.
• Add some seam binding and lace trims near the bottom.
• Tie a ribbon with pompoms near the bottom of the mini brown paper bag and attach to the card overlapping the trims.
• Add the sentiment ‘Noel’ cut out of patterned paper to the right of the bag.
• Machine stitch bag in place.
• Embellish with more patterned paper cut outs, pins, and rhinestones.
• Put some tinsel into the bag to finish.

Supplies: Cardstock, fabric, and border sticker: Anna Griffin; Patterned paper and Sprinklers: October Afternoon; Circle punches: Marvy Uchida; Adhesive: 3M; Others: trims, tissue, twine, pins, rhinestones, thread, tinsel, tag

Hope you enjoyed today’s cards and don’t forget to check out Sara Peterson’s article “Brown Paper Packages” in the November-December issue of Creating Keepsakes for some great ideas for using brown paper bags in layouts.

Thanks for stopping by!
-Mou