Dress Up Your Reusable Shopping Bags

I love the idea of using reusable shopping bags.  It just seems like a good thing to do.  One issue that I do have is that I am a rather frugal person, and I don't like to have to pay for my bags.  Luckily it seems that there are always little specials going on where you can get your bags for free.  Just last Thursday I picked up two free reusable bags at Fred Meyer.  I am very grateful that they are willing to help get me started, but when I go shopping, I use a lot more than just two bags.  I don't really want to bring in my collection of free or discounted bags (which would include about 5 different types of bags, all with the stores name and logo plastered all over it.)  Does anyone else feel bad about bringing a Wal-Mart bag into Albertson's?  I just feel like I'm not being loyal.  Anyway, to solve this  dilemma I decided to mask the logo printed on the front of my reusable bags and dress them up a bit at the same time.  Now I can enjoy some colorful reusable bags no matter where I shop.

This was such a quick and easy project.  I simply cut out two rectangles of fabric per bag. The bags that I used have straps that are attached on the outer layer which leaves a nice area for attaching a panel of fabric.  The size of the area I was covering was 7"x13".  I cut my fabric to 8"x14" and turned in all of the edges 1/2".  I pressed the fabric and pinned it into position on my reusable bag.  The only thing left to do was sew...so that's what I did.  You just need to take care not to stitch through any of the other layers of fabric as you feed the bulk of the back through your machine.  You could easily dress your bags up even more by adding ribbon, trim, flowers, or an applique.  I thought that I'd leave mine as simple as possible so that my husband might still be willing to carry them when he runs to the store.

I'm pretty pleased with my dressed up reusable bags.  Let me know what ideas you have for dressing up your bags.