Having three children with birthdays around Christmas means our holidays are filled with parties and gift giving galore. In preparation for wrapping some of my daughters gifts I noticed I had an over abundance of baby shower gift bags left over from when she was born. It was then that I realized two things, my daughter is quite spoiled, and there is know way I will ever use all of these bags!
After seeing how many baby gift bags I had stored up, that I couldn’t use, I will make more of an effort to choose bags without a theme IF I ever need to buy one again. That way the recipient can dress it up for any gift giving occasion and pass it on. I still have plenty of regular gift bags stored in a bin which brings me to my point. At some time enough will be enough and you won’t really need all of those bags, themed or not! You will reuse certain ones for gifts but over time you will certainly have more than you can possibly hand out. (Or, is it just my family that goes crazy with the gift bags?) So what can you do with your gift bags when they are no longer needed? Here are a few ideas to…
1. Paper Bag Puppets – Small colorful bags would make great paper bag puppets with a little extras added to them!
2. Scrapbooking – Cut up bags you no longer want and make embellishments for scrapbook pages.
3. Pregnancy Care Centers – Many centers give baby supplies to expecting and new mothers in need. Ask your local center if they would like to use baby gift bags as “shopping bags” or to use in their fund-raising efforts as decoration.
4. Create beautiful wall art.
5. Diaper Changing Kit – Smaller bags are great for using as a diaper changing kit. Gather a few diapers and necessary supplies in a bag, then you have a portable solution for changing a diaper anywhere in the house.
6.Make a “While you Wait” bag - Gather thank you cards or magazines you are wanting to catch up on and put them in a gift bag. If you know you will be waiting in the carpool line or doctor’s office you can grab the bag and be ready with things to occupy your time!
7. Lunch Bag – Small gift bags can make the perfect lunch bag and sturdy enough for multiple uses.
9. Library Bag – Some gift bags are sturdy enough to lug a few books to and from the library.
10. Churches – I asked my Mother-in-law if she would like bags to pass on to the women at her church and she gladly took them. Churches have many functions where extra gift bags can come in handy.
How many gift bags do you keep on hand? Do you have any creative, re-useful ideas to add to the list?
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
It’s really nice article. i want to try these.
I used my daughter’s gift bags that were all the same size to organize the clothes that she could not wear yet at the top of her closet. And each time she switched sizes I would pull one down. Each time new clothes came in I put them in the bag with the same size clothes.
Great ideas here!
How about using the larger ones as “upstairs/downstairs” bags? This is a chronic problem in our house — the stuff piled up at the base of the stairs waiting to go up.
I was thinking about taking some of the smaller ones, putting them in a small to medium sized Amazon box (something else we have WAY too many of) and making a toy or desktop/dresser organizer.
Or perhaps a pantry organizer?
Craft supply bag?
Use a gift bag instead of a basket for this: http://mothering.com/all-things-mothering/inspiration/the-magic-morning-basket
Under the sink organization?
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