These little bags came to be after two ideas kind of collided. When my brother, sister and I were little, my mom made each of us these darling little bunny appliqued drawstring bags to hold our jelly beans at Easter. They really were one of her secret little tricks to try and get us to be quiet in church Easter morning...super sneaky mom. I had planned to tutorial those cute little bags in the the spring, but then conjured up the idea of a candy corn bag for Bryce to give favors to his buddies in. Since Bryce's favorite candy is candy corn ( how appropriate is that for an October baby ), these little gift bags started something that grew into the theme of his 6th birthday party. They were, of course, filled with candy corn, and also a test tube of glow-in-the-dark green slime, and funny glasses.
On to how to make this quick easy little bag! A great project for the any beginner...
Materials:
-1/4 yard (or scraps will work too!) of white, orange, and yellow cotton fabric
- 24 inches of 3/8 inch matching ribbon
white thread
rotary cutter
1. First, You need about 1/4 of a yard of orange, yellow and white cotton fabric. Kona is my favorite, it just washes and holds up really well.
NOTE: For my party I needed 13 bags, so I cut about 3 strips of 45" fabric to get 26 sides for 13 bags...agh! Math! You can get about 4 bags out of one strip of 45" fabric - please note in my pics my strips will look longer due to the number of bags I was making.
If you just want to make ONE bag your width will be 10 inches ( this will give you two pieces of roughly 5x6 inch sides).
Using a rotary blade cut 3 strips...the white will be 3 inches long x at least 10" wide , the yellow and orange 2 1/4 inches x 10 inches.
2. Match the long edges (width) of your white and orange fabric together and pin. Sew 1/4 inch seam (see green line in photo).
3. I don't have a serger, so I went back and zig-zag stitched over my edge to reduce fraying. If you do have a serger, this step can be eliminated.
4. Pin the yellow strip to the other side of the orange with a 1/4 inch seam and finish with zig-zag stitch.
5. Press the seams down, so that the finished piece lays nice and flat.
6. Measure a 5 inch width out of your strips and cut. If you are making one bag, you now have two pieces that look like this....
If you are making multiple bags, cut 5 inch widths out of the entire strip. This should give you about 7-8 bag faces (depending on the width of your fabric).
7. Place the fronts together and pin. I started stitching 1 inch down from the top left corner of your bag and continue down across the bottom and back up the other side, again, stopping 1 inch before you reach the top of the bag. I back stitch at the start and the finish to reinforce the seams. (please ignore the incorrect order of my fabrics on the photo below! I forgot to photograph this step and had to use one of my goof ups!)
8. Now, take your iron and on the front (it's still wrong-side out) fold the 1/4 inch seam in the top 1" of un-sewn fabric into the bag...see picture. Do this on the left and right side of the front. Then, flip over to the back of the bag and do the same thing.
9. Picking up only the front facing of the bag, fold down 1/4 inch of white fabric and press. Fold down another 1/2 inch and press again. This will form your casing on the front of the bag. Do the same on the back of the bag.
10. Stitch (see green line in photo above) right along the edge of the casing. ( I turned my bag right-side out to complete this step)
11. Cut a 12 inch length of 3/8 inch ribbon of your choice. Attach a safety pin to one end of the ribbon and feed it through the casing, beginning and ending on the same side. Take your second piece of 12 inch ribbon and on the opposite side, feed it through the casing in the same manner.
12. Singe the edges of your ribbon with a lit match...be careful! If you get the match too close to the ribbon it will catch on fire! I stand at the kitchen sink, in case of emergency, and get it just close enough that the edge of the ribbon seals...this will prevent fraying. Tie a knot on both sides and you are done!
Happy Halloween everyone!
I hope your little one enjoys their candy corn bag as much as my little ones do!
Jenny
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