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!


perfectly imperfect | haven by hayden