Sew an easy Valentine’s Day Tote (Custom)

 

We are in the awesome stage of life when every child celebrates Valentine’s Day at school <3. Everyone gets a card, no child feels left out, and the classroom throws a party. I find it to be rather cute, as it helps children celebrate love in an innocent way – teaching them to be kind to ALL. We are talking pre-boyfriend, pre-teardrops on pillows, pre-puppy love. Just pure, innocent friendship Valentine’s. And well, I am milking this stage for as long as it lasts.

My kids have been asking to make their Valentine’s Day cards for a few weeks now, and last night I finally broke down. We searched Pinterest, with each child choosing the cards they wanted to craft, and got to work. It didn’t take long for the seamstress in my to come up with the brilliant idea of custom tote bags for the children to carry their Valentine’s in.

Using home decor fabric I already had on hand, these bags took me less than 20 minutes to sew. And an additional 10 minutes to personalize. They look professionally made (we are talking like Pottery Barn Kids worthy professional – woot woot!), and my absolute favorite part…I didn’t use Valentine’s Day colors, so these totes can be used year-round.

Let me walk you through the process…

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How to Sew an Easy Tote Bag

Keep scrolling below to see how to easily customize your tote bag…

 

How to make an easy tote:

• Skill level – Beginner
• Time needed – 20-30 minutes

 

MATERIALS:

• 5/8 yard home decor fabric
• Coordinating thread
• Universal regular point sewing needle (90/14 or 100/16)
• Rotary cutter / fabric scissors
• Ruler
• Cutting mat
• Sewing machine

 

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Cut out the following pattern pieces from your home decor fabric:
   • (1) 31″ x 14″ rectangle for the tote bag
   • (2) 40″ x 3.5″ rectangles for the straps
2. Fold tote bag in half, right sides together, matching up the short outer ends. Pin and sew the sides. Finish seams using a serger, pinking sheers, or a zigzag stitch.
3. Turn bag right side out, pushing out corners, and press.
4. Fold the top raw edge of the bag towards the inside 1/4″ and press. Fold again 1/2″ and press, enclosing the raw edge. Pin and sew around.
5. Fold the long raw edge of your strap 1/2″ towards the wrong side and press. repeat for opposite edge.
6. Fold strap in half, enclosing the raw edges, matching up the folded outer edges. Sew along the folded edges to secure. Finish raw side edges of strap. Repeat for both straps.
7. Place the strap edge on the inside of the tote, 3″ in from the side edge. Pin in place and sew a square around the bottom strap edge to secure. Repeat for opposite side of strap, on opposite side of tote 3″ in from the side (making sure the strap is not twisted when pinning). Repeat for other strap on other side of purse.

*Keep scrolling below for printable instructions to make an easy tote bag. 

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How to personalize your easy tote

To customize this tote, I used Expressions Vinyl. I had a sample of their glitter vinyl sitting in my supplies for almost a year now, and decided to give it a try. Furthermore, I used my Silhouette Cameo to get the perfect letter/font cut out. The cutting machine is not necessary, but certainly helps. Here is what I did:

MATERIALS:

• Expressions Vinyl Glitter Heat Transfer Sheets (HERE)
• Silhouette Cameo (not necessary, but obviously helpful if you have one)
• Iron & Ironing Board

Step One – Set up heart image in Silhouette Cameo software.

• I googled ‘heart image’ and found a basic black outline of a heart.
• Saved that heart to my computer and opened it up in Silhouette software.
• Clicked ‘Trace image’ to trace around the heart and get the heart cut lines and deleted my heart image.
• Lastly, I typed the name into the inside of the heart using a nice bold font for easy cut lines.

Step Two – Print out image onto glitter vinyl paper.

I did some research to make sure I was using my Silhouette properly for the Expressions Vinyl glitter vinyl paper. Silhouette School Blog is FABULOUS for all things Silhouette. She has written countless books for those of us who are kind of clueless about these cutting machines.

• Set my Silhouette settings accordingly on my computer.
• Changed the blade on the machine to 4.
• Made sure my glitter paper was face down.
• Reversed my image so that it was mirrored.
• Hit ‘send to silhouette’.

The image cut like BUTTA.

*As mentioned previously, a cutting machine is not necessary to use the glitter vinyl. You would simply need to trace your image onto the back of the vinyl backwards (mirror image), and cut along your traced lines with an Xacto knife! 

Step Three – Adhere image to tote bag.

• Place the image in your desired location on your tote bag, place a piece of fabric over your image, and press. The trick here is to press FIRMLY and hold for 40 – 60 seconds in each location. You will feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger when you are done – lol.
• Remove the plastic on top of the glitter vinyl when you are finished!

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PRINTANBLE INSTRUCTIONS:

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Thanks so much for stopping by, and until next time…

Happy sewing!