I am sure that we have spent a small fortune in Christmas wrapping paper over the years. I grew up in a family of six children and Santa never wrapped anything. I am sure by the time my parents bought gifts for all of us the last thing they had dollars for was wrapping paper. I must say that we did things a little differently with our children and some things got wrapped, the things from Mom and Dad, but the gifts from Santa were not wrapped. Well children grow up and become adults and although the gift giving has been cut back considerably there is still plenty of sparkly paper and tissue everywhere. That is part of the fun of Christmas time. Gift giving has always been one of my favorite traditions. I really don’t care to receive gifts, but I sure do love giving them.
Although most of the gift giving now involves the grandchildren, there are some adults in our lives that are important to us and as we get older, they become more important. This year I decided to wrap the gifts for the special people in our lives a little differently. I found this great tutorial from Pam at Threading My Way. What a great way to give a gift within a gift. I gathered my materials and off I went.
The nice part about these lovely bags is that they do not require a lot of fabric and it is easy to mix and match patterns. This is a great time to find colored cord by the spool and I picked up a few to use for a variety of projects. Pam gives the basic measurements, which I used for the small bags.
I love the way the inside peeks out from the top.
I knew that one of these bags would need to hold a bottle of wine, so I simply measured the bottle to see how tall I needed the finished bag to be and added seam allowances. I left the top contrast and the upper trim measurement the same. All I needed to do was to make the body of the bag longer. I did keep the width the same and it works great.
Since Pam posted this original tutorial, she has done a post on 30 Reusable Gift Bags. Be sure to visit her blog and check out all of the different variations she has gathered in one place.
What is the tradition in your family? Does Santa wrap all that he brings? Have you made handmade gift bags? Are you still sewing or crafting gifts you will be giving this year?
Happy Christmas Sewing, Donna
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