Summer Adventures Tote Bag Project

For most of us, summer is in full swing, which means trips to the beach, pool, and other fun out-door adventures. Our Large Craft Tote Bag is quite versatile and it can be used as an artful craft bag, a roomy beach tote, or to hold just about anything you can come up with. Best of all it’s made of durable canvas material that’s ready to be brought to life by your creative touch. This tote bag can be altered using fabric, color, embellishments, and so much more!

We want to encourage our readers to have an artistic and fulfilling summer, and what better way to support creative exploration than with this beautiful and functional Adventure Tote Bag Project? Take some cues from us and replicate this project to create a lively green bag or create something completely unique and personalized! This project has so many creative possibilities that I can’t wait to try my hand at making my own. For my tote, I am thinking of something beach themed.

What will you create?

 

Materials for the Summer Adventures Tote Bag Project:

–Large Craft Tote Bag
–Lattice Stencil – 12 x 12
-White Fabric Paint
-Green Rit Dye
–Foam Brush
–Scratch Alphabet Large Clearly Impressed Stamp Set by Julie van Oosten
–Black StazOn Ink

 

Summer Adventures Tote Bag Project Instructions:

Step 1 – For this project we decided to rit dye the tote bag a nice green color. We used liquid rit dye and did it in the washing machine, which was super quick and easy. Make sure you do an extra rinse cycle (or two) after the actual color wash. This helps to rinse out any excess of color and prevent the color from staining the machine and anything you may wash in the future. However, you may want to do a couple of dark loads after doing a rit dye project, just to be on the safe side!

Step 2 – Rather than line dry, we ran the tote bag through the dryer and it worked out well. This will help you save a little extra time, especially if you can’t wait to start altering your bag. It also softens up the fabric a little bit so that it isn’t quite as stiff, which can be helpful when you start stamping and stenciling on the bag.

Step 3 – Once the bag is completely dry, you can start stenciling! We used the 12 x 12 Lattice Stencil with white fabric paint and a foam brush (unfortunately, we no longer carry this particular stencil in The Shoppe but we do have many alternative options in our Stencil Collection). We intentionally left some portions blank and just dabbed the paint through the stencil to give the tote bag a more weather-worn appearance. Also, when working on a bag like this one, it can be a bit difficult to get it completely flat so trying to cover the entire thing with a neat stenciling technique would be very hard. Embrace the imperfections!

Step 4 – For a last bit of detail, we stamped a few half-circles to create a scallop edge designs along the top edge of the tote.

Step 5 – Finally, along the bottom of the bag we stamped the word “ADVENTURE” using black StanzOn Ink and Julie van Oosten’s Large Clearly Impressed Scratch Alphabet Stamp Set.

 

Want Even More Tote Bag Inspiration?

How do you carry it? Peek inside the the pages of Haute Handbags and see how well-known artists create unique purses, clutches, totes, portfolios, sacks, bags, and much more.