If you can make dots, lines, and circles, you can paint your own Gorgeous gift bags! This activity is great for groups, families of all ages, or just a personal craft journey to relax before the holidays.

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Christmas, or any other celebration, is frequently associated with gift giving, right? And gifts need to have a lovely presentation. That goes without saying! Creative designers and manufacturers came to our rescue by providing two traditional solutions: wrapping paper and gift bags. In fact, as the history says, the first use of the wrapping paper was in ancient China in 2nd century BC- how cool is that?! And in Japan so called furoshiki- wrapping gift in reusable fabric- is, in my opinion, is such fabulous old tradition (which I would like to explore in another blog as I immediately think how fabulous it could be to wrap in our gentle cotton tea towels, don’t you think? )

Now, as we add name tags, ribbons and bows, the costs as well as time (searching for the right ones and then wraaaapping dozens of gifts) raaaapidly goes up.

Coming from the collapsing Soviet Union, where everything- absolutely everything was a deficit-we just had to figure something out. And even in my early years as an immigrant in the USA, I also had to keep figuring out how to bring JOY to the holiday season in the cheapest way without sacrificing the beauty of presentation.

Well, necessity has always leading humankind to creative approaches.

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To be totally honest, I did not get the skill of gift wrapping (again due to my past in the communist country where all embellishments have been regarded as bourgeoisie silliness). Also due to my highly energetic temperament I do not have that patience so needed to make all those annoying boxes’ corners perfect. They didn’t teach that skill in Russia ;).

As our family started to be invited to Christmas gift giving parties here in the states I was stunned by the mess and waste and the speed of how vigorously ripped apart wrapping paper turned a beautifully decorated room into a grand mess. AND WASTE. It became too overwhelming for me.

Thus, the wrapping paper idea was out of the sight out of the mind!

And I moved on to the second solution: gift bags. Oh Boy, what a surprise it was - up to five or more bucks a piece! I can’t even imagine large families expenses.

My prelude is done and now I am ready to give you very practical and simply glorious ideas how to truly make one very complex project into more economical, more joyful by including family members and their creativity and be ecologically conscious (I also don’t see any problems with re-using and reusing gift bags! Do you?).

So, let’s create our own whimsical holiday gift bags that can even be art in itself!

And, believe me, the time it takes to create is not going to be more than wrapping! Because one bag painting could take only one-two minutes!

Let’s start!

Here are some easy video tutorials followed by many more ideas on creating various winter themed art that ANYONE can do.

Before you begin, here’s what you need:

Brown paper bags (or any plain bags you can buy in bulk). Get this set at Michaels.
A paintbrush or sharpie.
Acrylic paint (unless you simplify your designs and use only sharpie) - color(s) of your choice: white, yellow, red, black, etc.
Glitter or Glitter Glue (optional).
You can also use any stamping tools (I use back of a pencil, bottles, or cups). Kids would LOVE this creative technique!
Set up your craft station by covering your table and getting your supplies ready. Watch this video on setting up your station.