I love canvas tote bags. I probably have about seventy-five different sized tote bags in my closet. It feels only natural to pass my love of these wonderful bags to my two year old daughter. With summer coming, she needed a bag that was small enough for her to carry her library books (all two of them that she can carry) and “her cell phone” around in. She had an absolute blast “painting” the decorations on this bag. It was so simple and yet a great craft to pass a rainy afternoon (and as proven by my Elsie, so easy a two year old can do it – with a little of mommy’s help of course).

Step One:

Gather all needed supplies.

1. Paint in desired colors. I purchased regular craft paint from Hobby Lobby for .99 cents per bottle. Elsie was wearing hot pink, green, and blue that day so that is what we matched the paint to. No creativity to that madness.
2. Canvas bag. This was also purchased at Hobby Lobby for $2.99. Price does vary on the size of your bag. Elsie’s bag is roughly 13×14 inches.
3. Letter template. This is so simple to do using your computer and printer at home. I chose a font that was fairly simple – Ariel Black (can’t get much simpler than that), sized the font to 550 point, printed and cut out.  Note: If you want to fit an entire name on your bag, you will need to play around with the font size so you can make it fit.
4. Sponge brushes.
5. Foam stamps. These were purchased at Hobby Lobby for .99 cents.
6. Newspaper. Just recycle. It’s free for you and great for the environment.
7. A pencil (not shown).

Total project cost: $6

Step Two:

Lay your newspaper out over your workspace and place bag in the middle.

Step Three:

Trace the letter in desired area of canvas bag. I love things off centered, so I chose an off centered spot on Elsie’s bag.

Step Four:

Paint letter color of your choice.

Step Five:

This step is especially important if you are letting a little person decorate the bag. Let the paint on the bag dry. The craft paint dries fairly quickly so walk your dog around the block, drink a cup of coffee, watch the latest episode of Glee or play a game of checkers with your mailman.

Step Six:

The best step of the whole project (ok close second to step seven). Decorate!

Instead of dipping the foam stamps directly in the paint, it is much much cleaner if you paint a thin layer of paint before stamping your bag.

Step Seven:

Admire your bag and fill with all your summer treasures. These are the perfect bags to carry library books in! And since during the summer, libraries have summer reading programs, each child in the family is definitely going to need one of these bags. As you can see, you can use different things as templates. Paper dollies make your mom’s book bag so much more grown up.