glitz design: gift bag mini book tutorial

this is a little tutorial that i'm sharing on the glitz blog today!!  it's so fun that i wanted to share it here too!!  do you have any gift bags sitting around your house that are too pretty to throw away?  i'm a little bit of a hoarder when it comes to pretty things....like the bag below!!

enjoy!

Hi Glitz fans!  I'm here with you today to share a quick tutorial of how to turn a gift bag into a mini album!!  I love mini albums and I'm always looking for fun and unique ways to use the products I have.  

I've been saving this bag since Christmas for something fun.  I wasn't sure how I was going to use it, but I just love the color and pattern and I couldn't bring myself to throw it away.

When I was thinking about our "gold week" here at Glitz, I knew I wanted to use this bag.  I thought about using it on a layout to hold my pictures and journaling, but then, as I was looking at the bag, I realized it would make the perfect mini book.

I started by cutting the sides off of the bag and then laying it flat.  This bag has a wide base at the bottom, so I used adhesive to glue the back of the bag together.  I used the natural fold of the bag as my guide.

I measured the bag and trimmed a few pieces of white card stock to use as the base of my pages.  To continue with the gold theme, I painted and misted some of the pages.

I also embossed the triangle stamp from the Raven Stamp Tin and the tiny stars stamp from the Wild & Free Stamp Tin onto my background papers to create a fun shimmery effect.

After my pages were dry, I sew the middle pages directly into my "bag" book.  You could easily staple the middle, add a ribbon, or hand sew your pages together if you don't have a sewing machine!  

Then it was time for my favorite part: adding pretty pictures, gorgeous Glitz papers and fun embellishments!!

Here's a look at my finished "bag" mini book!