embellished shopping bag

when i found these photos in a file the other day, i realized i never posted this "passionately purple" gift bag i made for niece lindsay's eighth birthday! since her main present was the fancy (if oddly shaped and hard to wrap!) princess crown i made with october's anniversary pixie dust kit, BLUE MOON, i converted a full-sized kraft shopping bag for the purpose:

i knew for a fact that miss l's official favorite color was still purple, but something i didn't realize beforehand is that her OTHER favorite color is aqua blue; by the merest chance the exceptionally elderly large alphabet stickers i chose to spell her name had aqua and white accents, so i built my design around them.

it just so happened that i had a few punched butterflies leftover from another project, so i die-cut some additional ones from purple scraps and made a... flock? swarm?? (what's the collective noun for butterflies? ...anyone...??!) of those babies. all they needed were a few pearls to make them super-fab!

finally, stuck for just the right trimming at the top of the bag, i sewed some very old purple ribbon to a long length of doubled-over broderie anglaise lace i found at a yard sale; hot glued it into place, and finished it all off with another butterfly and a few florals.

i don't think there's a single item involved in this project that's less than three or four years old--including the bag! but it just goes to show how "stash shopping" is not only a great way to save money... sometimes it's a great design choice, too! ♥

(vintage: lace; recycled: shopping bag; patterned paper: dcwv, bo bunny, prima, anna griffin, laura ashley, doodlebug, paper co, sei; letters: making memories; bling word: heidi swapp; paper flowers: prima; aqua flower: webster's pages; silk flower sprig & purple ribbon: michaels; border punch & pearls: recollections; adhesives: tombow monorunner, 3m foam tape, hot glue)