A Retro trick-or-treat – drawstring bags and tags

Hello friends…I hope you’ve had a great week! I’ve been super busy this week playing the days away in my studio and making things that I haven’t made in awhile…

I’ve been making sewn goodie bags!

I was in 4H when I was young and one of my favorite and first sewing projects were small drawstring bags. In fact, I was quite the entrepreneur and branched out into pencil pouches and sold them at school. LOL…ahhh, the good old days! 😉 I would have flipped for these fabrics back then!

This week I decided to re-visit that oldie but goodie! So bear with me, I am NOT a seamstress but I’ve made a tiny tutorial sharing how I used some of the Tim Holtz Halloween Regions Beyond fabrics to create these bags. Here’s a look at them..then to top them off, I used the new Sizzix Retro Halloween thinlet set. Don’t they go so well together? I just love them!

PS-Don’t let the idea of sewing treat bags scare you…if you can sew a semi straight line, you can make these bags…I promise!

So, let’s get to it!

I trimmed 2 pieces of fabric to 6.75″x9″ one was a tiny dot that I had in my fabric stash and the other was a piece of fabric from the Tim Holtz Regions Beyond Fabric Line. These were both ironed prior to trimming so that I got a good straight cut on all the edges.

Next, I ironed an approximate 1/4″ edge on the short (6.75″) edge of both fabrics. Just be sure that when they are both ironed out so they match to the other piece of fabric.

Where I had ironed, I stitched an approximately 1/8″ seam on both fabrics, then compared them to see that they still matched up after I was done.

After I knew that both pieces of my fabrics matched up to each other, I placed them together with pretty sides facing into each other, then stitched approximately 1/4″ seam at both the top and bottom.

I then turned the fabric inside out so that the pretty side was out, then ironed the piece flat, being sure that the piece was flat for the next step.

I cut a length of rick rack trim to just about a 1/2″ longer than the piece of fabric, and stitched the rick rack to the front of the fabric piece approximately 1/2″ from the top of the top seam. Once the rick rack was stitched to the front, I trimmed the leftover bits of rick rack on both ends.

This area became the “pocket” for my drawstring bag.

I folded the piece in half with the Tim Holtz fabric facing in (that’s the fabric I wanted on the outside of my treat bag), then starting just below the rick-rack area, began straight stitching along the edge approximately 1/4″ from the edge of the fabric, being sure to run the seam back and forth at the beginning to keep the piece together..

Here’s a close-up of the beginning of my stitches and where I went back and forth so that the stitches would hold…but make sure that you don’t go back to much and sew over top of our draw-string pocket area.

Then I stitched the bottom of the bag and trimmed off all the excess threads.

I turned the bag right side out, then ironed it flat with my iron.

Next, I cut a piece of jute that was approximately 16″ long and pinned on a safety pin to one end and began running it through the drawstring “pocket”.

I gradually inched it through the pocket until it came out around the other side.

Viola! A drawstring goodie bag fit for some Halloween treats..and after the treat are all gone, a place to store ear pods, tiny trinkets, jewelry…all sorts of things!

Now, let’s make the tags…

I spritzed and sprayed pieces of watercolor paper using Distress Stains and Mica Sprays and water until I had a good combination of papers to cut out the Retro Halloween pieces.

Then cut out my pieces, blended the edges of them with Black Soot or Walnut Stain Distress Inks using a blending tool, and adhered them together with collage medium.

I cut out #5 tags from the leftover papers after I had cut the retro pieces, then randomly stamped them using various Tim Holtz Halloween Stamp Sets. I pulled bits and pieces of scraps from my stash that included denim pieces, mummy cloth, threads and grungy buttons and began layering them onto the tag and stitched them into place. Then the Retro Halloween pieces were adhered using a hot glue gun.

Once the tags were all stitched up and finished, I stuffed the bags with gift bag paper shreds and some Halloween candy, then tied the tags to them and tied the bags shut with the jute.

With that, my trick-or-treat bags were complete! Aren’t they cute and fun how the Sizzix pieces blend so well with the fabrics? I love them!

Thanks so much for stopping by today and bearing with me as I explained a sewing tutorial..I hope it was explained well and that you give making them a try, I had so much fun with these and love how everything Tim Holtz creates blends with each other and makes it a good reason to buy everything!! LOL! I appreciate you and the time you spend to check out my latest creations. Take care and have a great weekend!

Creatively yours,

Stacy

Products used to create this project- Tim Holtz Regions Beyond Fabric Collection, Sizzix Retro Halloween Thinlet Set, Thread, Sewing Machine, Jute, Buttons, Fabric Scraps, Sizzix #5 Tag Thinlet, Watercolor Paper, Distress Spray Stains and Halloween Mica Sprays, Tim Holtz Halloween Stamp Sets and more…

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