Now and then good things come from cleaning and organizing like this Recycled & Decorated Shopping Bag For Valentine’s Day. As I went through my overflowing “bag of bags” the other day, I found this cute black and white striped shopping bag from Sephora. It has the printed name on the front and the back so I needed to decorate both sides. I love to do this with any decent small shopping bags that I get at a store, but you can also buy kraft or colored bags at any craft store. I think it is fun to decorate and embellish a shopping bag and turn it into a personalized gift bag!

Here is a bag I changed into a birthday gift bag with some stamping and die cuts! The possibilities are endless!

Since Valentine’s Day is coming up, you might have a gift you need a gift bag for so perhaps this will give you some ideas. You, too, can look through your stash of bags and see what you find! Remember, hearts can be for any time so you can use this idea past Valentine’s Day!

To decorate this bag, I simply used a piece of Gold Glimmer Paper for the background and die cut a Real Red heart with one of the hearts in the Stitched Be Mine Dies in the Stampin’ Up! Annual Catalog.

The two center hearts are punched with the Heart Punch Pack. I stamped a greeting from the Heartfelt Stamp Set on Whisper White and punched with the plain-edge heart, then layered it on a Gold Glimmer scalloped-edge heart. You get both punches in the Heart Punch Pack. I usually find it’s best to use the Multipurpose Liquid Glue when adhering something to the glimmer paper.

For the back of the bag, I just die-cut three different sized hearts using the same Stitched Be Mine Dies. I just adhered them together and then adhered them to the bag.

It’s so easy to make your own gift bags by recycling bags you probably already have in your home! Go find one and make a gift bag out of it! Make the gift extra-special by doing something creative with the bag!