T-shirt Bag Tutorial

I'm putting together an Easter egg hunt for our nieces and nephew again this year and was on the hunt for a thrifty easter basket/bag/bucket idea. I bought $1 buckets last year and they were ok, but I didn't really want to buy something like that again since they end up getting thrown away. A friend found an idea in a kids magazine that I fell in love with instantly: a t-shirt bag. Before I went to Goodwill to buy shirts for the kids' bags, I did a test run using an old t-shirt I already had. The logo on it is for our children's ministry at church, so I made it to give to the children's pastor's wife. Start with a shirt (can be long or short-sleeved) and cut off the sleeves and collar and trim off the bottom hem if you want to make the bag shorter. I've found that it helps to turn the shirt inside-out so you can more easily see to cut all the hem off. Jersey knit doesn't fray, so you don't have to worry about having raw edges!


With the shirt inside-out, straight stitch across the bottom of the shirt:



Using the neck hole, turn it right-side out.


Voila! The arm holes are now the handles of your bag! I added ribbon bows to the handles for a little decoration and to make it look a little less like a t-shirt.


I think I'm going to dig around for some more shirts so I can make reusable shopping bags. Stay tuned for the Eco-Easter Edition of the t-shirt bag! I found some cute shirts for the kiddos!