Teacher Appreciation Gift Idea -- Make Personalized Tote Bags!!

It's Teacher Appreciation Week!! 

I'd love to share what we are giving our wonderful teachers this year.

I recently saw some cute pillows on Freshly Picked and thought they were so funny and whimsical.

{Freshly Picked}

I thought I would take that concept and make some tote bags for my kids’ teachers this year.

I designed the face on my Silhouette machine and printed it off using heat transfer material.

{If you do this, remember to mirror your image before you print it out}

We added the teacher's name and a little apple popping up for a whimsical touch!!

Once the image was printed out, I took off the excess heat transfer tape, leaving only the images I wanted to use. Then I ironed the image onto plain tote bags. I found a four pack of tote bags at Hobby Lobby for $6.99. So each tote bag is less than $2. Such a good deal!!

My kids had a great time designing the tote bags with me. They think the bags are so fun! We thought it was cute to have the apples popping up from the bottom of the bag.

The last thing I did was make some cute little bows with each teacher's favorite colors.

I made a 6 inch wide by 8 inch long piece of material. I sewed it inside out on three sides and then turned it right side out and sewed the last side shut.

Then I took a button cover and covered it with some coordinating fabric and glued it in the middle of the fabric with fabric glue. 

So now I have a fun bag that their teachers can use as a beach bag or to carry things in. 

Plus, I am going to fill the bag with some goodies, depending on what the teacher likes. 

Some ideas that would be fun are a beach towel and some flip flops. Or even a  

gift certificate to their favorite store or restaurant.

Now if you want to make this and don’t have a craft cutter like Silhouette, there are two other ways you can make these totes.

• The first is use heat transfer material and trace the image on with a pencil and cut it out. 


• The second is you can paint the face and name on your bag --  use some paint medium along with regular craft paint.

Be sure to check out all of the great Teacher Appreciation Ideas at Skip to My Lou!! 

I also had a reader who saw this post and made her own version of teacher appreciation tote bags:

Check them out at 36th Avenue!!

xoxo