Day 27 ~ Write 31 Days ~ Fast, Cute, Creepy Trick or Treat Bags

Every year, I try to give bags of candy that are not only filled with nice treats, I like to also have the bags themselves look cute.
Most years, they are made from paper lunch bags, sometimes, I use nicer, handled bags, but whatever I hand out, has to be something that the kids will remember. One year it was little plastic pumpkins filled to the brim with candy, they were memorable, but didn't hold a lot of candy...

I again go to my all time favorite, the napkin.

I love the tremendous amount of designs that are available in napkins, especially at Halloween. There are Jack-o-lanterns, spiders, ghosts, monsters of all sorts, and pretty fall leaves and colors.

I start by cutting out the design that I want to use, usually just the focal that can be added to.Leave the plies together when you cut, it will make it easier to handle.

Paint a swath of white with acrylic paints, it doesn't have to be tidy, or the same size as the design, and... this can be skipped, but... it does help the design on the napkin to show up.
Peel the layers of the napkin apart, leaving the top layer that has the design. Using PVA glue and a paintbrush, lay a thin coat of glue onto the white paint, lay the napkin cutout on the sack.

Smooth very gently with a dry paint brush, this part is very delicate, if the air bubbles are not large, simply push down o it, this will adhere the napkin to the bag. If they are large, try to gently push it to the side, or, you can use a needle to "pop" the air bubble, but really, if you just gently work it, the air will escape.

I like to paint around the shape in a variety of colors. black works well with the pumpkin. I don't paint the background black before pasting the napkin, because it will be dark, you want a vibrant orange color. 
 

Using a strip of the napkin works well, especially when you have a cute trio of Jack-o-lanterns!


An alternate method to using paint is to use the second ply of the napkin. When you peel the plies, lay down glue and lay the white layer down on the glue, smoothing it to relieve the bubbles. Let dry, then lay a thin layer of paint over the napkin... lay the cutout, printed layer on top, covering the white layer. This works well, and it saves having to use paint, but... I don't mind the paint, I actually like using it as a design element.

Using a stencil or a stamp, you can create cute bats, spiders, skeletons on the bag. I had leftover cutouts of bats, so I used them as stencils. With Black acrylic paint, stenciled in the bats flying above the pumpkin. I could stencil in a moon as well with yellow paint, but I have a few of the moon cutouts left over.  There are several types of decorations you could use for the bag, I used glitter to add a little sparkle, some holographic tape and a border of the napkin to add a little extra to the bottom of the design, and also added handles on some of the sacks.
The handles are made from plastic bags which  have been cut into two inch wide strips and braided, then hot glued to the inside of the bag.  Some of the bags have handles made from bright green raffia, knotted and looped through holes in the bags made with a hole punch. Quick and easy and the kids remember that you had something special for them!