updated November 1, 2019

It’s time to start Christmas crafting! These sweet, reusable fabric gift bags are just the ticket for adding some homemade thoughtfulness to a simple gift. I love how the metallic iron-on details add a touch of shiny glam to this easy sewing project. No need for wrappings that head straight to the landfill after the Holidays, these cute little gift bags can get reused year after year!

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Amidst the total chaos that is my life right now I still managed to create one last crafty thing before we packed up and moved out of our old house. As I’m writing this, we are between homes since our new house won’t be ready for a couple more weeks. It’s been a tough transition for the kids, but we are all very excited about the new house!

As a point of interest, this is my 100th blog post! I’m amazed and grateful at how far this little blog has taken me, and I have so much bloggy goodness planned for the months to come!

Ok let’s craft!

I had these great cotton flannel fabrics from Stacked Fabric Company and they were just calling out to be made into Christmas goodie bags!

These little reusable Christmas gift bags are ideal for stuffing with a few sachets of tea, some homemade treats and a little note. Awesome as teacher gifts or re-usable advent calendar pouches or even to fancy-up a gift card. Honestly these little bags with be so handy this Christmas, I intend to make quite a few more!

DIY Reusable Fabric Gift Bags

What You Need:

Cute cotton flannel fat quarters
Metallic Heat Transfer Vinyl (HTV)
Iron
Press Cloth
Sewing Machine
Thin Ribbon
Optional: Christmas dies and die cutter.

Note: You can find HTV at Michael’s in the Cricut section. It comes in every colour!

But HTV is also available on Amazon, and is less expensive there. 🙂

I used my die cutter and a few Christmas-y dies to cut out some shapes to adorn these reusable fabric gift bags with.

What To Do:

Cut your fabric into 6.75″ x 18″ pieces. One fat quarter will yield 3 reusable fabric gift bags.

Fold down the top edges by about 1/4″ and iron them down towards the inside of the bag.

Position your HTV cut outs where you’d like them, plastic film side up. Cover with a press cloth (just a piece of cotton fabric) and heat press them until they are well adhered. (Be careful when you check for ‘doneness’ because the plastic will be hot!)

While the shapes are still warm, carefully peel off the plastic film. If you find the edges of the HTV are pulling up, go back and iron them again to make sure they stick!

Sewing Reusable Fabric Gift Bags

You’ll need to plan to leave a gap when you’re sewing the sides of the gift bags so that your ribbon has an exit point for the drawstring.

Here’s how I did it. Pin your bag right sides together. On one side seam, chalk or pin mark at 2.5″ and 3″ down from the folded top edge. That half inch space will be left un-sewn.

Now straight-stitch both side seams, catching the top folded edges. I went back and did a zig zag stitch to prevent fraying. You could serge the edges too, I was just too lazy to drag out my serger! lol

Now fold down the top about 1.5″, making sure that your stitch line will fall below the gap for the drawstring.

Pin it in place, then flip the bag right side out to make sewing it a little easier. Stitch as close to the folded edge as you can.

Add another line of top-stitching about 1/2″ up from the first to create the casing for the drawstring.

Use a safety pin to thread your ribbon through the casing.

Christmas crafting for the win!

Aren’t these so sweet?!

If you need some ideas of what to stuff them with, check out these posts from my continuing handmade gift series:
Part 1: 25 Christmas Gift Ideas to Make and Sew.
Part 2: 25 More Unique Handmade Gift Ideas.