Lunch Bag Cards

  • Difficulty Rating: Beginner
Tags

Angela Daniels, Craft Tools, Cutting, Glue, How-To-Projects, Papers, Patterned Paper, Upcycling,

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Lunch Bag Cards

Every once in awhile, I grab a few old lunch bags, my favorite Fiskars tools and I whip up a dozen cards to keep on hand. It's economical, a little green and a lot fun.

As a mom of environmentally-aware elementary school kids, I try my best to pack their lunches accordingly. This means trying very hard to eliminate the use of paper lunch bags. But sometimes, I just have to. The kids forget their lunch bags at school or they have fieldtrips. Or sometimes I just want the fastest thing possible to grab in the morning. Still, every year, I end up with hundreds of lunch bags that didn't get used up during the year. What better way to spark a little upcycled creativity than to have a lot of supplies on hand, right? So every once in awhile, I grab a few bags, my favorite Fiskars tools and I whip up a dozen cards to keep on hand. It's economical, a little green and a lot fun.

To start with, simply take a plain lunchbag (bonus "green" points if you've taken your lunch in it previously), turn it face down

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Fold the lunchbag in 3rds

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Trim a piece of patterned paper to place on the outside opening of the card.

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To add a decorative element to the cut out at the top of the bag, I removed the white paper guides from my Fiskars corner lever punch. This allows you to punch into paper that is not on a corner.

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I also added a rectangle of patterned paper on the interior of the card for a nice, crisp place to write a note.

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To finish off the card, I added a coordinating die cut shape from my Fiskars Squeeze Punch. Using a bit of ribbon or twine is a good way to keep the card closed (the properties of the lunch bag make these cards a bit bulky). Add a tiny little tag and you have a very cute, upcycled card that can actually be repurposed BACK into a lunch bag by the recipient. Now THAT'S upcycling!

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