Hello to all of you Perfectly Imperfect readers! I’m Hayden Norwood…Bama born, Texas raised, and a temporary transplant to Oklahoma. I’m an Interior Designer, lover of all things beautiful, Mommy to two little monkeys (2 and 3), and wife of a busy orthopedic resident. I’m so excited to be joining Shaunna in bringing you fun, creative ideas for your decorating your home, as well as DIY tutorials to use with your family or on your place of residence.
Growing up my husband would have a note each day in his lunch from his Mother. When we got married, I continued the tradition of jotting down a simple note of love or thanks…something fun for him to look forward to each day. As my boys are now getting older, I look forward to the day when I will be able to leave them sweet notes in their lunch, reminding them how special they are to me.
I decided to give printing on paper bags a try. Seemed like a fun easy way to say ‘I Love You’ or ‘You are Special.’
Here’s What You’ll Need:
Computer with Word/Photoshop
Printer
Paper Bags (Brown or White)
Scotch Tape
Ribbon/Raffia
Hole Punch
You’ll want to begin by creating a document in Word. You’ll need to change the paper size to fit your bag. For my Word program I went to File, Page Setup, and then Paper Size. You can then customize your size and save the paper size. The paper size I used was 5×10 for a standard lunch bag.
Once you’ve created your document, get creative! There are a ton of free fonts out there to download! I’ve created eight different printables for you. My bags were based on sayings that I say often or that I love. The two printables are available in 2 PDF files. Four four in black and four in color.
Now you’re ready to prep and print! In order to keep your bag from tearing or getting jammed in the printer, you need to use some Scotch tape. You don’t need much, but you need to tape the top shut, as well as, taping down the bottom flap.
When printing you’ll have to think through how your printer operates…do you need the printed side up or down? Do you need to have the bag going in bottom side first or top side first? For me I needed the printed side down with the top part of the bag going into the printer first. Once the bag is in (print one bag at a time) print your design of choice.
Once they’re printed, all you need to do is fold the top down (I folded mine to the front), hole punch, and tie your ribbon! And voila!
They were so fun to create and so easy to print! I joked with my husband that I wanted to print everything on a a paper bag now! These would be great for teacher gifts, Back to School bags for students, birthday bags, or party favor bags! The possibilities are limitless!!! Enjoy creating!
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Isn’t that great?!? Such a simple way to have fun with lunchtime! Thanks again to Hayden for a great tutorial and for sharing it here at pi. Be sure to check out her great blog and welcome her on board as a contributor here! *P.S. I’ll be setting these printables up for you on our downloads page asap!
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What a great idea! Love it! I am currently planning a “reveal” party. Think I will print bags with the saying “Ready to pop” and fill them with popcorn. Should be fun! Thanks for the idea.
What a cute idea Jan!!!
Love this idea! So many possibilities! 🙂
Oh my gosh how adorable!
I can see using those for party favors and other gift bags….great idea!
Nancy
Fantastic idea! I might try running them through the extra slot in the back made for cardstock, that way they don’t have to bend to make the circle in my printer!! Thanks for sharing!
Love it!!!!! What a cute idea!
What a cute idea! Wish I had a little kiddo to do that for. Thanks for the introduction to Hayden! By the way, Happy Birthday Shaunna! I saw the sweet post over at The Lettered Cottage & had to stop by to wish you well on your special day!
These are adorable!! Thank you for introducing us to Hayden! So fun meeting all of your new contributers! I’m sure you are thrilled to have them coming on board! Happy Birthday again!!
Love this tutorial and idea! How can we get the file to download? Thanks!
Very cool. I wonder if my hubby will let me do this with the work printer?!?
You are so extremely creative, Thank you for sharing!! I can’t find the link to the pdf? Am I missing something?
Thank you again, how thoughtful to share!!!
So cute. Maybe they could be used as party bags, too.
Who knew you could print on paper bags?? Not me! Thank you for sharing this cool idea! I can’t wait to try it out!
These are too cute! I love them so much! My heart skipped a beat when Hayden said she’d created printables, but like Cindy, I can’t seem to find a link to download them. What am I missing? Thanks so much for the adorable idea!
Love it!!! This would be great for a cookie swap at Christmas time too!!!
Thanks for sharing!!
Genius! I am having one of those “why didn’t I think of that!” moments….I am tagging this and I am going to do this for favor bags for my daughter’s communion in May! Love!
These are fabulous! I love pushing my printer to work with stuff other than paper. So cool!
My printer rejected the paper bag and just wouldn’t print on it. Bummer!
I found that my printer has the capability to flip the image so that I don’t have to tape the bag. I put the bag in bottom first and the printer flips the image so it prints correctly. You may want to check your settings and see if you can do that.
I also found that setting the printer to “Envelope” for the type of paper helps it get picked up by the feeder…maybe because it is prepared for the increased thickness of the bag. I hope you are able to get it to work! =0)
Thanks for the tips, Janelle!!
🙂
shaunna
I am a newbie.
Can you tell me what printer you use?
I have an Epson 515 but want to up grade. I love scrapbooking and like to choose
my own pictures and sizes but I am not real happy with this printer. Although I do
like epson products as a whole.
I love the lunch bag ideas. I have grandchildren who would love to get goodies in a fun treat bag.
Thank you!
Adorable idea! I think these would be great for party bags and sending treats to family/friends who need meals delivered to them (working on 1 meal right now, actually). Plus I’m thinking these are good bags for my hand-made stationery and invitations. Hmmm…. good thing I have a 100- pack of the brown ones just waiting for me!
Great idea and they are so cute! I can’t find the link to the printable though – can you advise how to download this please or where?
Thanks for posting such a versatile idea! These bags would be great in so many ways– lunch bags for my grands, gift bags, treat bags for Halloween, etc! I love the idea!
how cool!! My husband is deploying soon and I always suck at care packages…These will be great to separate things I send him….toiletries in one, snacks in another…I cant wait to get to the store and get some bags to test this out!! thanks for sharing!
Love, Love, Love this idea!!!
These are great!!! Thank you so much for sharing…..can you tell me how I download these?
Thanks again!!!
My bags are not getting jammed, but they are smudged with ink. Thought this would be an awesome & economical idea for the cookie bar at my daughters wedding. Will keep trying.
Hey Denise,
There is a little tray where your ink cartridges sit when the printer is not in use– sometimes ink pools in that tray and then when you try to print something thick, you get blotches of ink. Try lifting the lid of your printer, sliding your cartridges out of the way and blotting that area with a paper towel (use gloves!). Sometimes I can soak several paper towels. The first few bags you try after that may still have some random ink, but it usually this helps after that. Hope you’re able to get it to work!!
I will definitely give this a try….THANKS!
great idea, thanks..will use this for my grandsons this summer when we do our weekly picnic lunches…
i love these bags, but i can’t find the “downloads page”. Can you help me find that?
Please help me find the download for these bags. I love them.
This is an awesome idea!!! I have my daughters birthday party coming up and these will be perfect for goodie bags to put a thank you note on it!!
What a great idea, I plan to try it out for our Christmas workshop to put all craft things like a goodie bag to take home. Thank you again 🙂
Wow! Such a great tutorial. I made invites to a Pirate party on Brown sacks. I burnt the perimeter and crinkled it up and then rolled it like a treasure map. It was a hit thanks to your inspiration. Thank you so much!!!
Thank you for sharing!
I just made a bunch of Ladmo Bags! Awesome!! Thanks!
Thank you for this great tutorial! I used it to create this paper bag project and linked to your post: http://www.pigskinsandpigtails.com/2013/07/last-preschool-lunch-ever-printable/
Thanks for your marvelous posting! I truly enjoyed reading it, you could be a great author.
I will be sure to bookmark your blog and definitely will come back very soon.
I want to encourage that you continue your great writing, have a nice weekend!
I really love this tutorial. I just need to know how to download the sayings. Looked everywhere but could not find them. Would appreciate your help. Thanks
I’m able to concur with what a few of the other posters have written on this page, but my viewpoint happens to be a
tad bit unique.
What an amazingly cute idea! Can you tell me how to find your downloads page?
hello
i have been trying this but my inkjets and lasers are all jamming,,, any particular printer you are using? any suggestions? thanks in advance
amir
Hey there Amir!! 🙂
I’m not sure what type of printer that was used. 🙂
I am bout to try this but the bags I have have handles on them. But I am going to try them anyway maybe I can take the handles off and replace them when I’m done. This is a great idea cuz I just tried to pay for have something printed on them and I pulled up the site and didn’t you came up you are a god sent!
I love this idea. You are super creative. And thank you for sharing your sweet story. You have a beautiful family.
Great tutorial! I know this is old, but in case others come here looking to print these, if you chose paper handling, scale to size and chose “envelope #10,” this prints perfectly from a mac. I’m sure you could chose envelope #10 and scale to size somewhere on a pc as well. I had problems getting it to print (paper mismatch errors), then I figured this out. Hope it helps someone else. You have a fantastic website!!!
Thanks Jenny! I’m on a mac, I’ll try that first – and I’m sure you’ll be saving me a bunch of headache from the start!
nice one. Thanks hayden norwood 😀
Thanks so very much for the idea and the tutorial!
THANK YOU! Finally, someone who explains this process. I had a hard time finding one. Due to this, I’m following your other social sites! 🙂