Paper bags with hand lettering
Cool slogans and fun designs – these home-made kraft paper bags make perfect gifts, and are ideal as decorations or for storage.
Anyone can buy them – but we just make them ourselves…
Do you have lots of ugly flower pots that don’t go together? Then we have just the solution for you! With a bit of kraft paper, white acrylic paint and some pretty hand lettering you can create original plant pot covers in the twinkling of an eye. They are especially effective in groups holding similar plants such as cacti.
For a flower pot we need a bag with a square base. To determine the right paper size, measure the diameter of the top of the pot, multiply by 4 and allow a border of around 2 cm for gluing. This will give you the width. The height of the bag is the same as the height of the flower pot plus about 5 cm. In our example 42 x 25 cm: (width 4 x 10 cm + 2 cm, height 25 cm).
Cover your work surface with kraft paper or e.g. old newspapers and paint the whole of the cut-out kraft paper sheet with acrylic paint. Once it has dried (12-24 hrs approx.), you can start folding it.
Identify the centre of the sheet with a small fold, fold both sides inwards so that they overlap by around 2 cm (Figs a & b) and stick together.
Fold the bottom corners up into the centre (Fig c), and sharpen the fold with your fingernail. Unfold both flaps again.
Fold the upper and lower points of the resulting diamond shape into the middle of the diamond (Fig f) and stick.
Fold the right- and left-hand sides of the bag in to the middle and press down (Figs g & h). Then roll the acrylic roller over the bag, applying firm pressure to create sharp edges. Turn the bag over and open up the sides to create space for your lettering (Fig i).
To transfer hand lettering easily to the bag, shade in the back of the lettering template with the edge of a pencil (2B) held flat.
Then place the template on the bag and trace around the outside edges of the lettering with a sharp pencil (HB).
Go over the tracing using the pigment liner. Use a pigment liner with a line width of 0.3 for thin lines and the pigment liner 0.7 for thicker lines.
Turn down the top edge of the bag. It’s okay to crumple the paper a little as you do this: it creates a typically vintage look.
Tip: Fold the painted paper within 12-24 hours. The edge is easiest to turn down when the paint is dry but the paper is still slightly wet.
What you need
Additionally required:
smooth work surface, kraft paper, white acrylic paint, paint brush around 5 cm in width, glue stick, scissors
No time right now?
Save this article as PDF!
