Upcycled Garden Tote Bag. Learn how to make a garden tote bag by recycling a pet food bag. It is water resistent and works great!
Over a year ago I saw a blog post about making an upcycled garden tote bag from a pet food bag at Garden of Eden Goods. I bookmarked it, and then when I started using Pinterest, it was one of the first things I pinned. Now, over a year later, I finally got around to making my own.
If you have been around the blog for a while, you know about my not so green thumb. You have also have seen how, slowly, over the years, my green thumb has been improving little by little (especially outside). This is the time of year we are constantly harvesting from our garden. I figured it was finally time to get this bag made!
I followed along much of the original tutorial, but had to change up a few things to make mine work.
Upcycled Garden Tote Bag
Supplies Needed:
Pet food bag (washed)
Sewing machine and thread
Scissors or rotary cutter
Step One:
Wash and dry your pet food bag. When I washed mine the bottom stitching came apart. (I was going to originally just use that as my bottom).
Step Two:
Turn the bag inside out. Stitch bottom edge closed. I did this using a zig zag stitch, but a straight stitch would work fine, as well. Turn the bag right side out again. (To make things simpler, you could even leave the bag right side out and just stitch across the bottom edge, but I wanted my bag to look more finished.)
Step Three:
Cut off top edge of bag. I cut off about 5 inches on my particular bag.
(If you look closely, you will see the bottom accidentally became my top – oops! I stitched the wrong edge first.)
Step Four:
Fold the bag over with right sides together.
Step Five:
Using the bag you trimmed off in step three, cut this piece of bag lengthwise. Then cut one of the edges, so you have a long straight piece. These two pieces will become your handle.
Step Six:
Place each handle strap right sides together and pin. Stitch around three edges to create a double-thickness handle.
The red dashed line is where I stitched around each handle strap
Step Seven:
Pin straps to the top of the bag on both sides. Stitch handles to bag.
Step Eight (optional):
I folded my handles in half at the top and used a straight stitch to make the handles a little less wide and more comfortable to carry. If you cut smaller strips for your straps, you won’t need to do this step.
I use my bag to carry in all the veggies we collect from the garden. You could also use this to corral your kid’s outdoor stuff or even as a re-usable shopping bag!
Inside of bag
Have you crossed any projects off of your to do list lately?
Linked up here: The Girl Creative, Homemaker on a Dime, Sew Many Ways, Tip Junkie, Not Just a Housewife, A Bowl Full of Lemons, Sugar Bee Crafts, Clean and Scentsible
Yay Laura! I still use my tote all the time! So happy you got around to making it! I have many pinned items on Pinterest I will be getting around to one day as well :)
What a neat idea! Our dog food comes in some kind of weird foil bags but I think I could do this with the rabbit food bag.
Yay Laura! I still use my tote all the time! So happy you got around to making it! I have many pinned items on Pinterest I will be getting around to one day as well :)