Customised bags - IACW

Here's a copy of my It's A Creative World post last week:

I saw some gorgeous decorated cotton shopping bags on a friend's blog and decided to have a go myself using items I had left over from my cross-stitching and sewing days (before papercrafting took over my life!).

I started with some cheap cotton bags like these:

For my first bag I used some stamps and Stazon ink to stamp flower designs on the bag then attached buttons as the flower heads. I then sewed a length of ribbon along three-quarters of the bottom of the bag. Here's a photo of the detail:

For the next bag I used a piece of digital scrapbooking art as inspiration and drew the design on the bag with pencil before using stranded cotton to backstitch the design. I then used sequins and beads to highlight parts of the design:

And here's a photo of the finished item:

I've already given one of these as a gift and the one above is earmarked for another with another three in the pipeline. I'll be using more of my stranded cotton, buttons, beads and sequins and, if I can dig out my sewing machine, some of the fabric scraps I've been hoarding.