Trick-or-Treat Bags

Halloween is coming up soon.  Are you ready?  Do you or your kids know what you’re going to be?  Do you dress up, or are you a a Halloween Hum-Bug?!

Well, ready or not, maybe this tutorial will help you get excited for Halloween.

Today, we’re going to make trick-or-treat bags. 

Want to know the best part about these bags?  I mean, besides their cuteness?  They’re WASHABLE!!

Which is perfect, because I just found a sucker from LAST YEAR in Monkey’s bag.  Ewww…

So, start off by picking up about 1/2 yard each of two cute, contrasting Halloween fabrics.  Grab a roll of 1” grosgrain ribbon in a matching color.

If your outer fabric has a pattern on it that goes in only one direction, cut it in half (in the middle) and sew it back together so that the print on the fabric will go the right direction on both sides of the bag.

See that seam in the center?  The center seam will be the bottom of the bag.  See how the prints are going opposite directions?  That’s what you want to do.  The ends of the fabric will be the top of the bag.

Okay.  Prints going the right direction?  Great.  Time to move on.

Take the lining of the bag and cut two strips that are about two inches wide, and the same length as the width of the top of the bag.

Sorry for the quality of the pictures.  It was really late at night when I made this bag.  Sew the strips to the ends of the outer fabric--the tops of the bag--with the right sides together.

Press the seam open.  Now you have a contrasting band on top of the bag on both ends.

Nex, cut two handles out of the grosgrain ribbon.  Mine were both 16 inches.

Pin the ribbon handles to the top of the bag on both ends.

I measured in two inches on both sides.  The handles should look like this on both ends of the bag.

When they’re pinned into place, sew the handles down. 

Now, take the lining of the fabric and cut it to the same size as the outside of the bag.

With the right sides of the bag together, sew around the entire bag, but leave a three inch opening on one of the sides; close to the bottom, so that you’ll be able to turn the bag right side out.

Before you turn the bag right side out, clip all of the corners.

Turn the bag right side out through the opening.  Take your scissors and push the corners out so they come to a nice point.

When the bag is right side out, fold the bag so the tops meet up and the outsides of the bag are facing each other.

Sew down each side of the bag.  Sorry, I don’t have a picture of this.  Your bag should look like a bag now!  Hooray!

Next, we’re going to work on the bottom corners of the bag.  This step is optional.  You could leave the bag as is right now (you’ll still need to topstitch around the top), but I think these bottom corners really help with the shape of the bag.

Gosh.  I don’t really even know how to explain this step, but I’ll try.  See that seam I am pointing at?  You need to sew one on each corner of the bag.  Do this by standing the (inside-out) bag on it’s bottom.  See where the corners stick out?  You need to sew a seam on the corners.  The outside bottom of the bag should look like this now:

…on both sides.  I hope that made sense. 

See how the bottom of the bag has more shape now?

Okay, now all you need to do is topstitch around the opening of the bag.  This will hold everything into place and it will be added security for the handles.

See that seam at the top of the bag?  That’s the topstitch.

Now you have a cute, fun, and washable trick-or-treat bag for your little monster!

I made this bag for my niece, and I plan on having her name embroidered on it.  I can’t wait to see how it will turn out.

If you don’t want to embroider on the bag, you can personalize it with felt.  I did that last year when I made my kids their bags.

…except I used their real names.  I just did it the same way I appliqued the name on this cute little blanket.  Only, I used felt.

I love how they turned out, and more importantly, my little monsters love how they turned out!  :)

Happy Halloween!