Bookbag craft

Here is another one of the homemade gifts we gave at Christmas—hand painted canvas book bags. A little clichéd, I know, but when I saw the bags on sale at Joann's I couldn't pass it up.

Supplies: Canvas bag (or apron, etc.), fabric paints, pipe cleaners, sponge shapes, brushes, and fabric pens/markers.

1. First we made our stamps. Depending on who is doing this craft you could simply paint right on the bags, but with my three year old helper I decided that shape stamping would work better and we made the necessary shapes out of pipe cleaners and sponges. For flower stems I twisted one pipe cleaner into the shape of two leaves, then wrapped them around another straight pipe cleaner. For the grass I cut a pipe cleaner down a bit, then folded it in half to make two short blades of grass. With both of the stem and the grass I folded up one tip to use as a handle. For the flower heads we used a heart shaped sponge, and for the center just a dab with a paint brush.

2. Once we'd made our shapes I poured the paints onto small dessert plates, one color to a plate, and we dabbed our shapes into the paint, using a brush to make sure they were well coated before applying them to the canvas. We ended up with quite a bit of color mixing, of course. I allowed the bags to dry overnight before painting the second side, which I decided should have Calvin's adorable little hand prints, and he decided should have a few more shapes as well.

3. I finished this craft by writing on the bags with fabric markers (after they'd dried over night again). Done.