Cookie Cutter Stencils and Embellishing a Brown Bag
I thought I’d share a fun trick for embellishing a plain brown gift bag.
My secret is using cookie cutters as a stencil. I will confess… my cookie cutters see far more use outside of the kitchen than in it.
These are the supplies I gathered to embellish gift bags for my children’s teachers.
Ignore the snowflake cookie cutter. I was considering using it for my stencil, but switched to the tree.
I insert a small cutting board inside the brown bag so that I don’t cut through it. I then trace the shape of the cookie cutter with a pencil on the brown bag.
After that, it’s pretty easy to cut the shape out with a craft knife. Make sure your cutting board or something else sturdy is inserted inside the bag – otherwise, you will cut through both sides.
After that, you are going to cut a piece of card stock to size and tape it inside the bag to cover up the hole. You could also use a thick wrapping paper or even a piece of your child’s artwork.
That’s it! This will take you just a few minutes and will really make your bag stand out.
But, wait! That’s not all folks!
In the true spirt of reuse and recycle, you can use the leftover card stock and brown bag that you just cut up to make a cute gift tag!
I hand drew a heart on the cut-out piece of brown bag and cut it out with my craft knife. Then I used a glue stick to attach it to the leftover piece of card stock. You could pick any shape you want! An initial or star would be cute too.
Here’s how it looks with a hole punch and a bit of brown twine.
My kids had fun addressing the tag (on the back) to their teachers and signing their names as well.
For teacher gifts this year, I gave a loaf of Apple Raisin Bread and a gift card. The bread is tasty and I will share the recipe soon, but I’m sure they will appreciate the gift card more. Ha!
In all seriousness, I am so thankful to my children’s teachers for their instruction, guidance and care. It’s a bit of an unnatural feeling to one day go from having your children home all day or doing an extensive background check on daycare providers and private preschools to sending them to public school where you know no one and have to trust these strangers will be a good influence in your child’s life. It’s weird, I tell you! I am so happy that my kids have had amazing teachers in their lives. I hope your kiddos have fantastic teachers too!
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