DIY: Making Fabric Monogrammed Gift Bags A Bag On A Budget

When I was working 40 plus hours a week on the top of juggling three kids, I often bought pricey birthday gifts in a mad dash. The shift from "working mom" to "stay-at-home mom" has given me more time and has even somewhat forced me to be more creative and selective in the gift giving process. I am actually thankful for that because now my gifts mean so much more in the grand scheme of things. This is how my youngest daughter and I decided to tackle the challenge of creating a small but thoughtful birthday gift in two days on a tight budget.  We allotted one day for shopping and one day for putting it together.


First my daughter picked out an adorable but affordable summer outfit.

If I would have had more time, I would have sewn an outfit myself...but as I said I only had two days to go shopping and pull together the gift along with keeping up with all the other responsibilities a Mom has....You know like sitting around and eating bon bons and watching made for TV dramas...HA! Yeh right.

Next, I made her a Kanzashi flower barrette with a display card.  Unfortunately I did not have time to post a (separate) step-by-step for the bow, but you can check out the page on this blog, Gone To Earth.  I used the exact same method for folding my petals and adding a covered button.  However, instead of numerous petals I used five of all the same size. I added a little glue in between each petal to keep them open and then attached a barrette to the back of the flower with glue.  I used left over poster board from one of my children's school projects to create the display card. I opted to hand write on the display card instead of just printing it.

The mom of the birthday girl told me that her daughter is currently crazy over rubber duckies. We found a cute pink rubber ducky packaged in a mesh bag at a local dollar store.  We couldn't resist adding him as a bonus.  To spiff him up, we removed him from the bag and tied a blue ribbon around his neck.  

I think he looks much more handsome now.  What do you think?

When possible, I prefer to use an actual fabric bag, reusable tote, purse or even a reusable lunch bag in lieu of the standard paper gift bag.  I add tissue/gift paper to it like I would a standard paper gift bag. It always turns out more attractive and even becomes part of the gift.  Thankfully I found a plain pink tote at....you guessed it...the dollar store!! They often have plain bags for sale. It of course did not stay "plain" for long.

I used Heat n Bond Ultrahold Iron-On Adhesive to embellish the bag.  You can skip a trip to the craft store and purchase it inexpensively, directly from the manufacturer using the pic link below....I LOVE that because for some reason it's frowned upon for me to go to craft stores in my pajama pants with a cup of coffee in hand.....I ironed the adhesive to the back of a piece of cotton fabric and allowed it to cool. Once the fabric was cool, I cut out the letter "C" (the recipient's initial) from the fabric and ironed it directly to the bag. Easy, peasy! Think of what all you can do with this stuff......

Affiliate Link:

HeatnBond Ultrahold

To finish up the bag I sewed pink buttons (can be glued) in each of the four corners of the front pocket. Then my daughter and I added glitter tissue paper, all the goodies and a handmade tag to the handle using the same blue ribbon we used for the duck.

Now it's all color coordinated and good to go!  Hope she likes it!!

Note: This a revived and updated post from a project I done a while back. She LOVED the gift and it was a total hit.  Yaay!

Happy crafting, my friends!