DIY - Folding giftbays

Since I have my own jewelry-label, I need to have giftbags, or something to make my jewelry look like a nice present. Since a while I fold my own giftbags out of books & magazines, instead of buying pre-made gift bags. Better for the environment, better for my wallet! And they look really nice :)

Because everyone can do this, a Do It Yourself for folding giftbags!

1. What do you need?
- adhesive tape
- scissors
- an old book or magazine

2. Take a page from the book or the magazine. I used a book in this tutorial. I used half a page per giftbag, and sometimes I make two uneven 'halfs', so that I'll get a bigger and a smaller giftbag. If you use a magazine with thin pages, start with a double layer of the paper. The pages of this book are quite thick, so I only use one layer. On my page is a young girl.

3. Take one half of the page and fold the two sides to the inside, so that they overlap at least a little. Further it doesn't matter how far each side is folded, it only makes the bag look different, just make sure the sides overlap.

4. If there's a ripped side, tuck it under the neat side (I always have a ripped side, because I don't use scissors to cut the paper). Put adhesive tape over the two folded sides, put a bit more tape than the length of the paper on both sides, and fold the adhesive tape to the inside of the paper on the two ends.

5. Now your piece of paper has two open sides. Fold one of the open sides about 1 cm to the back (the side with the tape. Do this with the open side that looks worst, because the side that you don't fold here, is going to be the top of your giftbag, and you want that side to look nice!

6. When you've folded one side of the bag push the corners to the inside, like in the picture below.

7. Then fold both long sides a bit more than halfway inside, so that they overlap a little bit.

8. Put adhesive tape on the part you just folded, this will be the bottom of your giftbag. Make sure that it sticks well, because otherwise your present can fall out of your giftbag!

9. Open up your giftbag with you hands, and look!

 

10. Below you see the two giftbags I made from the one page in the picture on top. One bag is the girls head (the top of the page), the other one the girls chest and arms (the bottom of the page). Because I always fold away the ripped parts of my page, I'll always get one giftbag where the picture (or text) is upside down. I don't mind that, but if you do, don't rip your paper, but cut it with a knife or with the scissors, so you can fold it the right way.

 

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!
If you want to have these giftbags, but are not so much into DIY, buy them in my webshop!