Hanging Ornament Decorated Bag

Super simple gift bag made recycling a paper bag and left over gift wrap or magazine pages and glitter glue

Items used:

• Paper sack
• Scraps of gift wrap or magazine pages
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Pen or pencil
• Glitter glue
• Round object

 I used small paint bottle for the round object and drew around it on scraps of wrapping paper, cut it out, applied glue stick to the bag then stuck it on the bag at different points on the bag.

Use the glitter glue (I used silver) to make a small dot at the top of the ornament for the shank and then draw lines up to the top.  Allow to dry and it is ready for gift insertion.

Reindeer Bags

While it looks pretty funky under the tree, these are fun to make.

These are just paper lunch bags with a partial outline of hand for the antlers and parts cut of of magazines and pasted to the bag to make the reindeer and names. 

I made one for a Christmas Throwdown challenge for exchanging our Secret Santa gifts and it was "Kate Moss the Burberry Reindeer" (sorry, I don't have a picture of it).

I used a red button for her nose and glued it to her nose and then created a necklace with a paper bead in the center for necklace. For the antlers I used a partial handprint on the edge of the magazine that had a perfume sample strip and it was even scented!  I wrote "Merry Christmas" at the bottom with gold paper paint and it did look cute and got a few chuckles. 

White Paper Bag Mushroom

This is another version of the paper bag mushroom for my garden. Here is a link to the original one that has links to where I first saw this on Dollar Store Crafts and a link to the complete tutorial on how to make this.

http://craftsandcreationswithkathy.blogspot.com/2009/08/paper-bag-mushroom.html

For this one, I used a McDonald's bag that I immediately removed a Big Mac box from one I got it from the drive-thru so it would not get contaminated.

I used white shimmer acrylic paint for the top of the mushroom.

Instead of rubber bands to secure the top and bottom, I used white twist ties and for the stake in the ground, I used a white plastic knife.

One it was put together I sprayed the entire thing with clear acrylic spray to protect it from the elements.

PAPER BAG MUSHROOM

Make a low-to-no cost lawn decoration using an small paper bag. I saw this project over at one of my favorite blogs, Dollar Store Crafts, and knew this would be perfect for the decorating the outside of our house. http://dollarstorecrafts.com/2009/07/make-paper-bag-mushrooms/ Items used:

• Small paper bag or lunch sack
• Bamboo skewers or sticks
• Hot glue gun
• Scissors

Probaby goes without saying that you wouldn't want to use a lunch sack that had any sort of anything that leaked, dripped or permeated the bag as it would attract bugs and varmits, but I have teen in my house that unless you indicate things explictly, he tries to get me on the technicality "but you never said that!" so I will just go ahead and say it.

There is a detailed photo tutorial at the following:http://www.dougrhodehamel.com/how_to_make_mushrooms.php

I varied mine slighly as I did not use any rubber bands as I wanted mine more poofy and offbeat for what is going to turn into the fairy garden under the eaves outside of my garage, but rubber bands would likely produce a more true-to-life looking one.

I also cut the bottom 2 inches off of the bag as I wanted it shorter and used a wooden skewer that is used for holding carmel apples.