Making any size gift bag

Do ideas come to you at the oddest times?  I was taking a shower the other morning and thinking about things I needed to do that day.  One of the things was to deliver some baked goods to a neighbor who lent us their Internet connection when we were having so many problems.  I wondered what I would put the items in and starting mentally creating a gift bag.

This led to the bag in the photo.  I did no research on this so I don't know what methods there are for making one but I thought this worked well.  Here are the measurements and how you can plug in your own numbers for any size you want as long as you have paper large enough.  I used some brown kraft wrapping paper which I believe came from one of those wrapping paper stores at an outlet mall.

I wanted a bag that was 6"x4" on the bottom and 6" high.

To calculate cut length:
Take the height of the bag - 6" in this case
Add 3" for the bottom
And add 4" for the top.
So 13"

The 4" on the top will allow you a double 2" turn which makes it plenty sturdy when putting in your handle.  (Now I'm just holding a cheese ball, cookies and crackers.  If you had something heavy you probably would need grommets or perhaps not even trying to lift it with the ties.)

The 3" for the bottom is calculated as 1/2 of the depth of the bag (4" divided by 2) + 1 inch for an overlap.  So take however deep your bag is to be, divide that in half and add an inch.

To calculate the cut width of the paper:
Add the two side measurements together and double them.  So in my case 6"+4" X 2 so 20 inches.
Then add one inch for gluing everything together.  That gives me 21"

The video goes through these measurements and the construction.  It is in real time.  I only cut out a bit of the handle tying to save time so it took about 10 minutes to create including some stamping.

Video at YouTube:


I like doing my own as I can make it any size and decorate as a like.  This was for a man so the kraft paper worked well.  I snagged the ribbon from my donate bag and clipped on a card I'd already made which was very appropriate for the subject.  I hardly ever use wrapping paper anymore so this will give me a way to use some of it up.

Thanks for stopping by!