Homemade Recycled Cereal Box Gift Bags

Recycle a food or cereal box into a pretty gift bag. Wrap in a paper of your choice and add ribbon or other types of handles. They are sturdier than a purchased bag and you can feed good about recycling. This page contains instructions for homemade recycled cereal box gift bags.

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Craft: Homemade Recycled Cereal Gift Bags

Rachel's Mom
Silver Post Medal for All Time! 277 Posts

February 21, 2011

If you don't have the right size gift bag on hand, create your own by recycling a box. These are much sturdier than gift bags and can be used over and over again.

Approximate Time: About 20 minutes

Supplies:

empty box, such as a cereal box
wrapping paper
scissors
tape
hole punch
ribbon

Instructions:

Trim the top flaps from your box. Wrap the box with gift wrap as you would a gift, leaving about two inches of paper at the open end of the box. Fold the excess paper to the inside of the box and tape to secure.

Recycled Box Gift Bag Step 1

For the handles, punch two holes on opposite sides of box, thread ribbon through the holes and knot the ends. Recycled Box Gift Bag Step 2

You can even create a gift tag from leftover wrapping paper. Fold a piece of the paper in half, punch a hole in the corner, and thread it onto one of the ribbons before threading the ribbon through the hole. Recycled Box Gift Bags

By Rachel's Mom from Wilkesboro, NC

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Craft: Upcycled Food Box Gift Bag

attosa
Diamond Post Medal for All Time! 1,246 Posts

December 16, 2015

Don't throw away your cardboard food boxes. Turn them into gift bags in a few simple steps!

Total Time: 10 minutes

Yield: 1 gift bag

Supplies:

1 cardboard food box or cereal box
wrapping paper
ribbon
scissors
glue
X-acto knife or hole puncher

Steps:

Cut off the top flaps of the container.

Use an X-acto knife or hole puncher to make holes at the top of your container. This is where your handles will be later. I just poked all the way through both sides so they'd be even.

Take one sheet of wrapping paper, big enough to cover your box, and start wrapping. I started with one side, leaving enough at the top to overhang and fold downward to the inside of the box a few millimeters.

Make sure to keep the paper snug against the box. When you like how it looks, glue some of the edges to the box. I glued the final wrapping paper flaps downwards under the box so they're not seen.

Reintroduce the holes you made previously by poking holes in the wrapping paper. Cut your ribbon into two equal strips. These will serve as handles. Make them as long as you want, but keep in mind you need to make knots in the ends, so shoot for a bit longer.

Make a knot in one end of a ribbon. From the inside of the box, poke through the hole you made out to the exterior of the box. Guide it back into the hole next door. Make a knot at the other end.

Do the same for the other side. If you need help getting the ribbon through the holes, I find a chopstick or pencil helps.

Voila! Upcycled gift bag.

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