Hey! It's Vanessa from www.craftygemini.com and I post weekly crafting and cooking videos
here on YouTube. This week I'm back with a quick tutorial on how to use up those fabric
scraps. So, the tutorial that we'll be working on today are these little sandwich or snack
bags. This fabric you can see has a little sheen to it. This is actually laminated cotton
and this is from Free Spirit fabrics, their Sugar Hill line of fabric. Which is really
pretty, I think. And they basically just put like this laminated, waterproof vinyl or plastic
over the top of the cotton fabric. So, one side of it you can just wipe it clean so it's
waterproof. And then on the wrong side of the fabric you can still feel like if it would
be the back of just the plain cotton fabric. For the snack bags you can see here's the
opening and then after you put your sandwich in or your chips or whatever it is in there,
you just flip the top over and that's how the closure works. So, there's no zippers
or buttons or anything. But you can see by the overlap there nothing will come out of
it. And I'll be walking you through the tutorial how to make it from the laminated cotton but
I also have another fabric here just plain 100% cotton fabric again from the Sugar Hill
line for Free Spirit fabrics. And it's the same thing. You can make it out of pretty
much any fabric that you want. I would use something that is washable that you can clean
just because it might get dirty depending on what you're putting in there. But these
are great because they are reusable, their environmentally friendly and I have a few
different finishing options here. If you have a server that will work. But then I'll also
walk you through how to hem it. So you can use just a simple hem to finish off your edges.
And on this one here you can see I used some pinking shears. So you always have that option
as well. So, let's quickly start with the supplies we'll need and jump right into making
our snack bags. So to create our snack bags we start with a piece that measures 18" long
by 7" wide and this is that laminated cotton fabric that is slick on the front and just
plain cotton on the back. And that's the one that we're going to be using to make the baggie
today. But here I cut out some other pieces the same size but this is going to be the
one that is hemmed. Just plain 100% cotton. And the same for this. Except that on the
edges for this one I used some pinking shears to help keep the fabric from fraying. If you
don't have a server or pinking shears I'm going to show you how to do it to basic cotton
fabric. You're basically going to do two simple hems on the short sides. I folded my fabric
under towards the wrong side 1/4" and then refold it on itself, press that in place with
your iron and just a straight stitch and stitch it down right close to that folded edge. And
repeat that to both short sides. Now I'll show you what I did for the laminated cotton.
Even though this fabric is not prone to fraying on the ends I'm still going to take some pinking
shears and just run it down both short sides of my fabric to help keep that from fraying.
You can also use this on just plain 100% cotton fabric as well. Now you take one short side
and fold it. Notice I have the fabric with the pretty side facing up. And I folded that
edge in 2". Now all you need to do is take the other end and fold it all the way over
so that all your edges are matching. And now we're going to use a straight stitch on our
sewing machine and the edge of our presser foot as a guide and stitch down both sides
remembering to back stitch at the beginning and at the end. Then you can reach into the
opening and turn your baggie inside out. You can see what it looks like. When you open
it right here this is where you would insert your snacks or your sandwich or whatever other
items you want to use to keep in here. ANd to close it all you gotta do is flip the little
flap over the opening and turn it out just like this. And then you can see that whatever
you put in there won't be coming out. And if you're using fabric that frays and you
don't have the pinking shears or a server just do zig zag stitches on the edge of those
interior seam allowances and that will keep those edges from fraying on you. And now that
you're snack bags are complete I encourage you to go head over to your stash and pull
out any small scrap of fabric that you may have. If your scraps are not as big as you
need to complete this project in one solid piece like I did here feel free to use some
smaller strips and just sew them all together and make one large piece and then just cut
out the size that you'll need to create this size or even smaller or bigger sized baggies
that you need. This would also be great to use up some old clothes, maybe old shirts
and things like that that you have that are 100% cotton. And it's just a great way to
kinda help the environment in a small little way by making these reusable snack bags. So,
I hope you guys enjoyed this tutorial and you'll give it a try. I'd love for you to
leave me a comment below and let me know what you're using these baggies for. They're not
just to be used for sandwiches and snacks but there's tons of other things that you
can do with it similar to my drawstring bag tutorial. If you'd like to check out that
tutorial you can click right here to go there. Remember to upload pictures of your completed
projects to our Facebook page. I love to see what you're making from the Crafty Gemini
tutorials. And I'll see you guys next time with another tutorial.
