Reduce, Reuse, Recycle......Is Adorable*

I really love this feature for my Reduce, Reuse, Recycle series and it comes to me from my friend Lin, owner of the adorable occasional shop in Buffalo, MN, "Bellacoux and Thistle Dew".

Lin's sister made these cute bags for the opening of her shop. Everyone loves them, including me, so I've decided to share them with you on this feature. And............tiny drum roll please...... I will attempt my FIRST tutorial!

Here goes:

For this project you will need:
1.Old magazines
2. A sewing machine
3. Scissors
4. Xacto knife and a cutting board
5. AND if you are anything like me, someone sweet to sew them for you ***Thank You Mom***

Gather all the old magazines you have. I found the garden magazines have the best photos.
Carefully tear out photos you like. I love the flowers for spring and summer.

I made my bags double thickness, or two pages on each side, if you want a heavy duty bag use three pages each side. You will need full pages for the front and the back and half or folded pages for each side. One page cut in half worked for the handles.

You will need to sew the handles in place first. Fold a half sheet, cut the long way, in half and then fold each side into the middle so it is a desired handle width. Sew the handles down the middle to keep them together.

Sew the handles in between the two sheets of the front and back. We used a zigzag stitch for the project. It gave a finished look.

Is everyone still with me?.........Let's put the bag together!

                                        This is the side piece...half as wide as the front and back piece.

You will first fold the smaller side pieces in half, so the are creased before sewing them to the front and back pieces.

Here's how the should look when all four sides are sewn together. This photo does NOT show the handles which should already be sew to the tops of the front and back. Oops...we learned by our mistake. :-)

Next sew the last two sides together and sew the bottom shut! And voila'....you have a re-purposed magazine bag beautiful enough to use as a gift bag.........don't forget to use recycled tissue in that bag!

I hope you enjoyed this my first tutorial........and if you attempt this project I would love to hear how you do!