Lined Paper Painted Tote Bag

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My kids went back to school this week, and I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty excited about it. The last couple weeks of summer have been rough and I think it is time for us to get back into a good routine. This summer has been kind of crazy and as a result I have not had as much time to work on blog stuff. I'm hoping with kids going back to school I will have more time to work on my blog. In celebration of the kids heading back to school I thought I would share a school supply themed project.

One of my favorite things about back to school time is the school supplies. I have always loved a new blank notebook or new pens, pencils, crayons, and markers. I think it is because I have always been a bit of a doodler, whether it is scribbling designs for new blog projects or drawing flowers on the side of my science notes when I was in school. I also just love the potential of a brand new notebook, so much blank space to fill up with words, pictures, and ideas. Fresh new colors of crayons, markers, and pencils to turn white pages into colorful masterpieces. The though of it makes me happy.

 I had some plain white canvas bags in my stash and thought of that blank canvas of a piece of paper and I thought it would be fun to turn the plain white bag into a piece of lined paper. It seemed like a fun project as I was getting kids ready for school.

I decided to leave my plain, just a piece of lined paper, because I thought it was kind of fun that way. I thought it would also be fun to add some words to the "paper", maybe #1 Teacher, or Mrs. Smith (or whatever the teacher's name is) to use it as a teacher gift. Or you could write whatever else you can think of. If I had decided to write something on the my plan was that I would cut it out of iron on vinyl (htv) and iron it onto the bag.

This was a really quick project and you only need a few things to make it, a canvas bag, a couple colors of paint, and a thin paintbrush.

How to Make a Lined Paper Painted Tote Bag

You will need:

• a plain white canvas tote bag (mine is from Oriental Trading Company and is about 12" x 13")
• Folkart Multi-Surface paint in light blue and fire coral
• a thin liner paintbrush
• a paint palette or paper plate
• cup of water for rinsing your brush

Instructions:

I did not measure my lines I just freehanded everything so my measurements are approximate, but if you would like to measure and have a guide for your lines it may help to have a piece of cardboard or a ruler to give you a straight edge. 

Start about 2 inches from the top edge of the bag and paint a thin blue line across the bag. Continue to paint thin lines of blue spaced evenly apart all the way down the bag. My lines are a little over 1/2" apart, about 5/8".

Once you have all of your blue lines painted across the bag, with the fire coral paint a thin line vertically down the bag about 1 3/4" from the left edge.

Let the paint dry and your bag is ready to use. If you would like to add text you could either paint it on at this point or cut something out of iron on with a Cricut or other cutting machine and then press it onto the bag.