How To Customize Your Tote Bag

Tote bags are very useful items that can be used for a wide variety of things. This item is becoming increasingly popular what with the desire of more and more people to go green. Due to this awakening to the preservation of our environment, many people are switching from disposable plastic bags to these reusable ones.

Retailers are not left out as many shop owners are switching to the use of these reusable bags for packaging their goods. Some even add them to the merchandise that they sell so that customers who are not down with plastic bags can buy for their shopping. These tote bags can be made with different materials but the most commonly used materials are canvas and cloth. For more on ways to go green click here.

Furthermore, these bags can be mass produced or DIY. You can decide to buy a generic mass produced one and jazz it up. Similarly, you can either print on it or customize it.

Usefulness Of Tote Bags

These items are useful for a wide variety of things and they include the following:-

Shopping

You can use it as a fashion statement when you step out to go shopping especially if you have customized it.  They are by far fancier than hauling plastic bags with your grocery items.

Attending Classes

These bags also come in handy for carry books and all your school supply. This would help preserve all your dressy handbags while you still look stylish to class.

Picnics Or Beach Outings

Load up your snacks, beach wear, sun block, hat and all the paraphernalia that one takes to the beach in a tote and you are good to go. 

Storage

You can hang up one of these bags in your closet to use for your underwear and other unmentionables.

These are just a few of uses that you can put a tote bag to. People have been known to creatively employ these items in more ways than we can mention in this article.

How To Customize Your Tote Bag

We have said previously that you can either buy a generic bag that’s mass produced and jazz it up or you DIY.  Whichever route you go, you would definitely need to know how to design your totebag to your taste. So we would give you 5 simple steps for this endeavour.

Step 1: Materials Needed

First of all, you have to assemble all the materials that you need and they include the following:

•  Plain Tote bag

• Transfer papers

• The design to use

• Scissors

• Pressing Iron

• Something to provide support (like a piece of wood) 

Step 2: Get The Design That You Would Use

After you have gathered all the materials that you need for your project, the next thing to do is to look for the design to use. The best place to get a design is to go online or if you are tech-savvy, you can use Paint.NET or Adobe Photoshop to create your desired image.

Step 3: Print Out The Design

When you find the design you like or have created your unique image, you have to print it out. This is where you need the transfer paper. Place a transfer sheet in your printer and ensure that it is placed in such a way that the design would come out on the side of the paper that is blank

Note that the image or text must be flipped horizontally before you print it so that it would not come out as a mirror image on the bag. You might need to do some trimming after you have printed it out.

Step 4: Transfer The Design

Now that you have printed out your design and trimmed accordingly, it’s time to transfer it onto the bag. Place the bag on top of a solid flat surface in preparation for ironing. But before going ahead to iron, ensure that you insert a wooden block or something that’s hard in the middle of the bag. This is to prevent the image or text from showing on the two sides of the bag.

Next turn the design onto the bag (face down) and then iron the image/text on. Start from one edge to the other and then move to the middle of the image/text. Each design has different time and setting required for ironing it on so ensure that you adhere to it. Thankfully, transfer paper comes with instruction for use.

Step 5: Remove The Transfer Paper

Leave the design on the bag to cool for about 2 to 3 minutes, and then slowly remove the backing on the paper. When you do this you will see that the image you printed out has been transferred to the bag. You can watch this video for a visual tutorial: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ya5fK6ulgiA

From the above, you can see that customizing your tote bag is not difficult. All you need is some creativity (for choosing your design) and the materials stated. So go ahead and have fun!