Painted Mini Totes

ByChristine @ theDIYdreamer.com

I was walking through the dollar store a few weeks ago and came across some cute mini tote bags.  It was a set of 3 for $1.  They are the size of little favor bags.  I just adored their size, perfect for my girls to travel little toys (like their Pet Shops) or even their makeup.  The only thing is I found that the bag was missing something.. like a design. So I decided to paint little designs on them.

Gabrielle and I made our very own stencils. She decided what she wanted as stencils, we searched through Google for images and printed them on card-stock (we wanted our stencils thick)…. then we would cut out the inside of the images.  Once we cut out the inside we cut a square around the stencil.

I then took out some wax paper, folded it in half and inserted it inside the bag.  I did this to protect the other side of the bag.  I figured if we would put too much paint, the wax paper would prevent the paint from soaking through to the other side of the bag.  (Thank goodness we did, because it really did protect the bag).

We placed our stencil onto the bag and used lots of paper-clips to secure it into place.
Then it was time to take out our sponge brush and ”dab” paint inside our stencil.  We used regular acrylic paint because I do not have fabric paint and we have no intention of washes these, so I figured acrylic paint would be fine.

We then removed our stencil and took out our dot tool so that we could put little paint dots around our new design.

Here’s Gabrielle working on her flower bag.

Ready to see our painted mini bags?

Gabrielle’s beautiful flower bag:
This was one quick and fun project.  Honestly, I’m thinking of getting some more… we had a blast doing these!  
What do you think?  Have you ever painted on tote bags before?
Have a GREAT day!!

P.S. I’m linking at these Parties.
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37 Comments

  9. These are very sweet. I’m always attracted to those little tote bags for something special for my granddaughters, and this is an idea that looks doable. Thanks for sharing it. Gail (BibleLoveNotes.com)

  11. This is absolutely adorable!! I love the colors and 3 for a dollar? That makes it even better! My daughter is only 17 months old, but I think she would love to carry around one of these and put little toys inside. I might be borrowing this idea if my dollar store doesn’t let me down ;) I would love if you stopped by and shared this {and anything else you’d like to share} at my Throwback Thursday party {closes tomorrow night}. I hope to see you there! Thanks for sharing :) http://www.hubbymademe.com/throwback-thursday-no-4/

  14. Hello! Stopping by from the Marvelous Monday link up at Jam’s Corner. This is such a cute idea– I love it! I hope you’ll visit me at jugglingactmama.blogspot.com

  17. Christine! I did almost the same think last week on Dollar Tree totes too :) I got the slightly larger ones for busy bags for our Disneyland trip. I did a Mickey on mine – so cute! Thanks so much for sharing at Mom On Timeout!

  37. This would definitely be a great craft project to do with kids. So pretty and lots of fun to make, too! Thanks, Christine, for sharing this at the Crafty Saturday Party! We will be featuring this at the party ^^) I can’t wait to see what you have in store for us this week!

    hugs,
    Lelanie

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