August Craftathon III

After the invitation card fiasco described in the previous post, I was crestfallen, uninspired and cuddled up in my bed while Coco was in school, when the senior most lady of the battalion called to inform me that we would have to deliver the card personally, and therefore in style. It is not a great idea for three people to visit the chief guest and hand over a mere feeble card. So she was planning to buy a paper bag to keep the card in. I volunteered to make a paper bag, and immediately my mood lifted up. After all, all the handmade paper that I had bought in anticipation was finally going to get a chance at being used for the intended purpose. Plus, there was the opportunity of exercising my paper craft muscles in a guided way.

My next stop was internet, to find out how to fold a paper bag. It is wonderful, this internet thing. It really is interesting to observe how we have almost all the knowledge available to us, just in a few clicks. Anyways, I found a suitable pattern and made my bag. I am not sharing any links that I used because paper bag patterns are easily and freely available all over the crafting sites. And, I also forgot the link that I used :)

Then came the most interesting part of making cute paper flowers and leaves and decorating the bag. In order to enjoy this process, I completely disregarded the theme 'rain and smiles,' because that ugly smiling sun was a prime reason in ruining the whole idea of the card. (Read in previous post.) 

I used the same card sheet that I had used for the card, and made strips of pink colored sheet, which I used as ribbons to twist and make these cute roses. After trying various leaf varieties, I finalized decent looking quilled leaves. It reminded me of my lovely rosebushes, probably because of the same size and color of flowers and leaves.

I laid out all the flowers and leaves on one side of the finished paper bag and found a satisfactory layout. Then the layout was roughly outlined with fevicol and the flowers and leaves took their respective places on the rust background of the bag. It was a little difficult to make the stiff paper flowers stick to a soggy background, even more difficult due to their diamond like shape, and they kept rolling away. So I placed a heavy object on top and waited for a few hours.

It was comparatively a lot easier to paste the flat surfaced leaves and after finishing the floral arrangement, I punched holes on the two edges of the bag and inserted wide green satin ribbon handles. They looked okay because they matched with the leaves if nothing else. After finishing the bag, I really loved the look of the bag and proceeded to do my next favorite thing, i.e. click loads of pictures from every possible angle. 

Crafting this felt really good because it looked so pretty and neat at the end. It also kind of resolved my issues with the main invitation card. I think, it will be a great idea to prepare a few bags like this, maybe with less flowers, and using them to deliver gifts. In the army, it is customary to get invited to dinners etc. and we usually carry little gifts for the hosts. I think receiving a gift in this bag will make the host happier. I know, I would love to get a gift like this. Some of my friends ooh-ed and aah-ed and rolled their eyes in mock anger because they want these bags. Soon!