Halloween Trick-or-Treat Ruffle Tote

Last year I had planned on making my girls trick-or-treat tote bags - and it just never happened. So, when I kept seeing adorable ruffle totes popping up all over Pinterest, I thought that it would be awesome to make some Halloween-ish ones for my girls trick-or-treat totes.  I had so much fun working on this project!

 

I have three little girls, so I was uber happy to find a three pack of black canvas tote bags at Joann's.  It was even better that I had a 40% off coupon to use there.  I don't remember the exact price, but I know I paid around $4 for all three.  I then headed over to the fabric department where I found some cute black, white and orange fabrics to use for my ruffles.  When I thought up my plan, I didn't want to use fabrics that weren't typical or obvious Halloween fabrics.  I wanted to use fun "everyday" type fabrics in Halloween colors.  As I was looking around, I found the cute, orange spiderweb fabric {that's sparkly!} and I couldn't resist it.  I knew that my kiddos would LOVE the glitter!  They also had this white fabric with black jack-o-lanterns on it, which I felt was kind of subtle too, so I grabbed it.  I found the two black fabrics on the regular racks.  I am really happy with how the fabrics work together, it turned out just as I was hoping it would!

This was a really great beginning sewing project for me.  The idea of making the tote bags was a little overwhelming for me, so I was glad that I could buy them and then just embellish them.  I followed this tutorial from Tania Willis at Fiskars to learn how to make the ruffles and attach them.  I followed Heather Bailey's awesome tutorial on how to make a yo-yo flower.  And I made the other two on my own since I had actually made some similar fabric flowers before.

 

This project was simple enough for me to get three identical bags done without having any type of a nervous breakdown, {I expect way too much from myself - i.e. perfection, which is totally unrealistic.}.  It gave me a little bit of experience using my sewing machine and I got to make some cute fabric flowers too.  I may even make a few cute ruffle totes to give away as gifts.  Or maybe I'll just make a fun one for myself.  : )

Happy trick-or-treating!