Recycled Gift Bags w/ Paper Beads Handle

I have been cleaning out my closet and found all these nice gift bags from last year.  The problem with it, is that they have the company’s brand name on it and you cannot really reuse them for gift giving.  I found an article from Green Craft Magazine, and on page 44 is an article on recycling the small cereal boxes.  I applied this idea in recycling the gift bags by cutting out Christmassy pictures from catalogs (I’m sure you are getting a lot around this time), apply glue using glue stick to cover the brand names in front of the bags.  I took off the handles and replace them with paper beads. I added some leftover beads to give it a little sparkle.

p.44 of Craft Magazine – they were making little favor boxes from small cereal boxes.

This used to be a gift bag with the brand name on both sides of the bag which I covered with cut outs from Catalogs.

I just use 20 gauge craft wire for the handle, I like the handle to stand up instead of just falling to the sides.  This is the other side of bag, I hang the snow flake ornament on the handle.

This box is from an energy drink, I like the front that says Rockstar, I thought this would be nice for an aspriring rockstar in your family.  I just experimented on this one and covered the box with tissue and painted it just randomly.  I thought it came out funky-cute.

This box as you can see is made from kleenex box, I cut the top off and just put blue masking tape all round it.  I glued some paper doily and painted it with bright colors – keep in mind everything on the box are just left over materials that I already have in my craft box.  I did the handle differently on this one, I wire wrapped the beads with 20 gauge wire same technique I use for making the wire wrapped paper bead bangle.

It’s pretty easy to make the tube shaped paper beads with the bamboo paper bead roller or if you want to make the smaller paper beads you can go with the metal paper bead roller.