no cost recycled out of town bags

ok, let me preface this post by saying - i've been unemployed for a long long time now. so long i passed stir crazy weeks ago and have just today moved into the "act like an insane person when your fiance goes to work because you can't stand another day of nothing to do" phase. after apologizing for above referenced behavior i decided that today i was going to put on some records, finish a little gift i've been thinking about for a while and take a stab at making my own paper bags for no other reason than i needed a task to keep me busy.

since we have such a large number of guests flying in from California, Wisconsin, and well all over the world (Dublin and New Zealand!), we've made an effort to take good care of them in exchange for them spending their hard earned cash on attending our wedding. we've transformed the traditional rehearsal dinner into an out-of-towners feast and we want to provide our guests with at least a little something in their rooms to make them smile when they land if possible.

the thing is, the out of town bags keep moving down the priority list and the financial allotment list. what started as a dream to make fabulous one of a kind silk screened cloth bags started to look much more like a packet of useful info, a bottle of water, and a map.

somewhere in my online or design school classes someone mentioned making bags out of newspapers and i've been thinking about it ever since. mostly thinking about it in ways like -man i'd be insane to make 50 bags by hand... seems like a lot of effort to save a measly couple of bucks... people are just gonna throw them away... it's not greener than buying new if i buy bags made with recycled paper...who has the time for that really?

well today i came to terms with the fact that i have the time. so i took an old LA Weekly out of my stack of newspapers and magazines that i use for art projects and gave it a whirl. i watched a couple of different online tutorials and ended up using a hybrid of sorts using only the papers and two pieces of tape each.

i love the way they came out. i love that some have bright crazy bansky graffiti art on them while others have concert listings, one even has a huge flight of the concords poster on it, i just love them. the best part is, the LA Weekly was free to begin with and something i had and intended to use for art projects of some sort. it's a perfect size and i made about 15 double ply bags out of one paper. i'll be using the boston pheonix to finish out the lot i think...

aren't they cute? i really don't think i'll ever buy a gift bag ever again. are any of you interested in a how to??