Bags

For the longest time I’ve been trying to find a good way to package my Shopping List Booklets and while looking for other packaging for note cards I decided to go with paper merchandise bags. Those are the kind you get at the grocery store when you buy a card. They usually put it in a little paper bag before putting it in with your groceries.

Anyway, I found these beautiful glassine bags from Nice Package on Etsy. These work great for my cards. Unfortunately, they’re a little too big for my booklets.

So I decided to try to make my own and had intended to use my own designs on the paper (and I still might). But here’s what I ended up with instead.

Here’s the thing. In my first couple of attempts I used scraps of graph paper. When I had a finished bag I thought it looked pretty cool all by itself. And much as I would love to print my own, I’ll also jump at a chance to save ink and use what I already have on hand. Not to mention, I’m totally impressed with Nice Paper’s use of graph paper for wrapping their bags, so I was much inspired here!

I made about 5 of them when out of the corner of my eye I noticed my Doane Pad eyeballing me and mumbling something about chopped liver. I thought I’d try it with the Doane. Holy cow! I’ve got not only a cool retro graph paper look but also vertical stripes! Totally unique and all without trying. :)

My next step then was to measure everything and design the printing on the front and name on the back flap.

Check out the red stripe on the back flap. At first I shuddered at it, but as I thought about it, I figured out a way to cut and align the paper so that when I fold the flap up the line rests just below my name. I think it’s a nice accent!

And as I was packaging up some booklets I thought having the two styles would be perfect for differentiating products. I’m now using the plain graph paper for single booklets and the Doane for sets of 3. This way when I get an order I can quickly grab a bag (I’m such a visual person I’m handicapped without these differences).

If you care to know how I did these and/or make them yourself, leave a comment and I’ll write up a tutorial with photos and a template if there’s enough interest.

Also, definitely check out Doane Paper. There are small note pads and booklets too!

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