Pink tie dyed gift bags

These hand made tie dyed gift bags are so much fun to make. And you can use them for so many things!

I used some white linen at Joann's, pre-washed it and cut some 8 x 20 inch strips. One for each of the three bags I made.



I sewed the bags using French seams. This was to avoid having to line the bags as I did with the striped gift bags I made last earlier. Since I was dying these bags, I wanted them to only have one layer.

To make a french seam, fold the fabric length wise with the nice side of the fabric out. Sew a 1/4 inch seam along each of the sides, then cut the seams back to 1/8th. Turn the bags inside out (Outside in really), then pin the seams and stitch two 1/4 inch seams along the sides, closing off the raw edge of your previous 1/8 seams into these two new seams as seen above.



Double fold and stitch the top edge of the bag, but leave an opening of about half an inch by one of the side seams. This will be for the draw string later. Turn the bag inside out again and you now have the finished bag and when you look inside, you will see no raw fabric edges. Everything will look nice and finished.



I scrunched up the three bags and added two rubber bands to each as you see above. The opening is toward the top. Then I prepared my dye bath. I used 1.5 gallon hot water, a cup of fine salt and a third of a bottle of Rit Pink Fuchsia liquid color. I was going for a bit of an ombre effect, so I dipped most of the bag so a little bit more than the top most rubber band was covered, and after 3 seconds lifted the bag half way out.



I lifted it out past the first rubber band, then held it there for a minute, then lifted it passed the second rubber band and let just the bottom of the bag sit in the dye for another couple minutes. This gave me the layered color effect I was going for.



I transferred the bags to some cold water in the next sink and rinsed them. Then I took off the rubber bands and gave the bags a soapy warm wash, rinsed, let them dry and ironed them.



I made a label for the mason jars and a tag for the bags. Since the candy is strawberry colored, I matched the words 'berry' and 'handmade' to this color. I used my own handwriting for those two words. I printed them out on white card stock to get the white text on the pink labels.



I ran some hemp cord through the bags and added a tag to each draw-string, then tied a knot. I just love how these bags came out! You can use them for all the things.

I used mine to wrap home made berry candy. See how I made that candy from scratch here.

I gave these out as hostess gifts during Christmas time.

About Katja Kromann

I am a Danish American decorating life in Seattle. I love all things design and I am especially passionate about color, scale and texture.

I can’t think of anything more fun than coming up with a new project, making it, photographing it and sharing it with you on my websites.

AHomeForCeramics.com AHomeForDesign.com AHomeForFood.com AHomeForCrafts.com My Portfolio