Bags of Flowers

We've just had a consignment of beautiful flowers and, as usual, I couldn't wait to use them. This time I've decided to make a bag rather than a card and this is what I've come up with.




This is a very easy bag to make and I used the template that I have used in the past to make the bag. Here it is again for all those who haven't seen it before.

1. I used an A4 sheet of heavy paper for this bag. Light weight paper will not do, neither will card.
2. Draw the lines lightly in pencil on to your chosen sheet and score along these lines.
3. Fold along the score lines and glue the 1cm fold to the inside of the 3cm fold on the opposite side of the bag. This will form a tube. Let it dry. The time that it takes to dry will vary with the type of glue that you use.
4. Now fold the top of the bag over towards the inside of the tube. There is no real need to glue this.
5. Holes can be punched to thread the handles through. I used a single round hole punch. I marked the place for the holes first. Punch both the front and the back at the same time so that the holes are level.
6. Fold the lines along the base of the bag as if you were making up a parcel. Glue together. To provide extra strength you can glue a piece of lightweight card to the inside of the base of the bag.
7. To decorate the front of the bag use flowers from the romance selection of Mulberry paper flowers and some lilac ribbon. The sentiment is from the Inspirational sayings sheet that has so many wonderful sayings to add to your work.

However, I couldn't resist a card too so here's one that I made with some of the flowers from the same pack. I made it for my sister in law's birthday as she is a good friend as well as a sister in law.
As you can no doubt see, I've kept the same large flower but varied the center flowers and added some leaves to give a very different result. I did my usual dot and dash border which is brighter in the flesh but which came out a bit pale in the photograph.