Make A Tote Bag Using just TWO DOLLAR TREE PLACEMATS! dollar tree hack

Hi guys, I'm Sheri. I hope you are having a fantastic day. Do I have something amazing planned for you? Stay tuned, so I had an in-person introduction for you in this video and another video, no matter how I am, I deleted it. It was by mistake, so I went out and filmed this replacement real quick and I'm not going to keep you in suspense because I'm going to pull this out so you can see it while I describe what it is. You all know that I have been crafting with vinyl

placemats

that I bought at Dollar Tree and I heard from many of you that you wanted a larger bag and that is exactly what we have here.

We have a large

tote

that uses two of the 18-by-12-inch

placemats

from the Dollar Tree so we end up with a

tote

that measures 13 inches wide, nine and a half inches tall, and two and a half inches tall. I'm

just

going to bring in that overhead shot so you can see we have a big bag. so big that I can take my hot glue gun, place it inside and still have plenty of room to place many other items. This is a great project and I am very excited to present it to you. I love how it turned out and I know those of you who choose to

make

this will love it, so whether you have a

dollar

tree

in your area or have another store where you can buy vinyl placemats, pick some that have really cute graphics . them and

make

unique bags these would make great gifts great craft fair sellers great sellers for your etsy store everyone knows what time it is it's time to make this making this couldn't be easier come on I need 2 12 by vinyl placemats 18 and then I have two strips that I cut from another placemat that are 18 by one.

These are going to be my handles and then I'm going to use my double sided tape. I will have a link for that in the description box and I will use my metal snaps and I will also have a link for these in the description box. When I say easy, I mean easy, so I'm going to place my mat on my bookmark. on the 18 inch side and I'm going to score at two and a half, turn it over to the opposite 18 inch side and score at two and a half, then I'm going to take this, make sure I'm scoring on the bottom and I'm going to score by two and a half as far as I can go and then I'll

just

change the score by two and a half until we reach the original score of two and a half inches, so this is what we're going to have.

We'll have three scores, two on the side one on the bottom and then we'll do the exact same thing on the other so we'll score on two and a half on three sides and then we'll score on two and a half on the bottom and then I'll flip it over and go to the other end at the bottom marking two and a half until I reach the original score of two and a half inches and then I'll go to the other side on the 18 inch side and make my third score of two and a half inches and then

using

my finger on one piece, I'm going to remove all the corner pieces and tilt them just a little bit, not too much, and like that I already removed the side pieces from that one.

I'm going to bring this piece and this time I'm not going to remove the side pieces. I'm just going to cut in this direction, so I'm going to go to the score and cut when I can. angle and I'm going to make a slight angle there we're going to do the same thing on the other side I'm going to go to that score, drag it out then I'm going to make an angle and I'm going to do it here and now I'm just going to bring in my big spatula and I'm going to go over the score marks that I made, like this that once we've gone over those scores, we're going to take the piece that we notched the ends of and we're going to place that down, so when we place it, we're going to place it over this piece just like that.

Now the way I'm going to do this is I'm going to attach mine

using

masking tape, my double adhesive tape and I'm going to place that tape on both pieces and if you want to do this project and you want to experiment with other adhesives, you can. I'm using my tape because it's proven to work for me and that's what I'm going to stick. So I have my tape on that piece where you have the tabs that are going to be the front of your bag, so what that means is you're going to take tape and put it on the inside of those side panels, so I'm going to take my tape. and I'm going to place it on this piece, and then I'm going to take a thin strip of tape and place it in the middle because I want to make sure I have good tape coverage.

We're going to go over to the other side and I'm going to do the same thing and we're going to place a piece here in the middle and then we're going to take masking tape and we're going to place it along the inside of that bottom middle section, only then we're going to be I'm going to turn it over and we're going to place some of masking tape on these flaps so you can place the tape however you want. I'm just going to place two pieces making sure it's not on the score mark and then Come over to this side and do the same thing, so I'm just going to place my tape, so to recap the piece where we left the tabs, we're going to place the tape on the outside of those two tabs and then when you flip it over. we're going to tape here here and here there's no tape there and then we're going to bring in the piece where we actually cut the bottom, we've already taped the bottom of that so now we're just going to take a couple of strips of tape and we're going to place it on the inside of these side panels like this and we do it because we want to make sure that we have good adhesion on all the parts of this bag that are going to be attached so we're going to put that right there and this is what it should look like now we're going to Flip it over and we're going to place our ribbon on these two flaps on the end, so I'm going to take my ribbon, I'm going to place a little bit of tape right there and then I'm going to place a little bit of tape right here.

I'm not going to go all the way to the edge in case I have a little space that I don't have. If I don't want it to be sticky, we'll turn it over, do the same thing here, and then I'll put on my last piece of tape. Using this tape, this is a pretty good construction method for this taupe color that We're doing the piece that we notched the sides on, it's going to look like this on the front and then when you turn it over, you're just going to have masking tape. there, so now we're going to take this and we're going to put it. together putting these two pieces together, so I'm going to take the tape off that piece and then I'm going to turn this piece over and take the tape off this bottom piece, so you want to make sure that when you put it down, you try to get it right the first time because you don't really have any wiggle room and if you have to lift the tape you can do it, but it's a little tricky, but it can be done now that We've placed this piece on top of this piece, this piece that we placed on top of is the back of our bag, so when we pick it up, we're going to bring that tab and we're going to bring these two together and you'll know they go together because you have your tape here and you want to find the tape there, so I'm going to take my tape off and then I'm going to bring this piece and I'm going to match it up, We really don't have any. wiggle room so when I combine it it's pretty much stuck and then I'm going to take the tape off of this piece and then we're going to go ahead and take this piece and we're going to combine it just like we did on the other side, we're going to be this nice and glued together.

Now we can take our bag and we can say how it goes because you want to join tape to tape, so we're just going to join these pieces together. I'm going to take the tape holders off, so I took the tape off and I'm just going to make sure I have that side folded in its natural crease, then I'm going to take this piece on the fold, bring it up and bring it closer and I think it looks pretty good, so now I'm going to do the same. thing on the other side, so I'm going to take the tape off and then once I've taken it off, I'm just going to fold it to get my natural crease on that fold and then I'm just going to lay it down and I'm just going to hold it up a little bit. and then I can lift this piece up to get a really good blend, so I'm going to use my big old spatula.

I'll go inside and make sure you have everything right. and stuck and you can see what a deliciously beautiful bag it's going to be. I was telling my sister that of all the placemats I've worked with, I don't know, it's just something about this character and he's appeared in three different ones. bag styles, it's something about it that I love, so these are becoming my favorite bags to work with. Leave me a comment below and let me know which of the placemats you've seen me use is your favorite. now we're going to bring in our handles and I'm going to put tape on my handles and I'm going to place that tape up about an inch and a half, how far you want to go with your tape is completely up to you. but I'm going up about an inch and a half, so once we get that tape there, we'll just remove the backing sheet.

Now I'll bring my bag. I'm going to lift this up to attach my handles. I'm basically going to grab the handle and search wherever I am. We will glue it. I'll move it in a moment. Isn't it so beautiful? I'm going to turn it around and do the same thing. Same thing here, so I'm going to lift it up, put my handle on and then before I lock the second handle in place, I'm just going to test it to make sure that the two handles are the same height and now they are. I can add that one.

I'm going to go inside with my big ol' spatula. Make it nice and glued. And we all have a beautiful bag. It's absolutely beautiful, so I'm going to bring my screws and I'm going to use these to reinforce my handles, so I'm just going to use my paper punch and I'm going to punch three holes per handle and I'm just eyeballing it, but if you want to be more Exactly, you can use a template. Once I have those holes, I'm going to use my largest tool just to go in and put in my little metal rivets or snaps.

I call them brooches. I think they might be called rivets on the website, but I like to call them snaps because they just break. together and I'm going to leave these, I'm going to do this side of the bag with you and I'm going to do the other side of the bag off camera, so I've put three of the pieces that have that little tip, so you'll have these little heads and everything What you have to do is take the head and place it on that tip and you will hear that click. I don't have my deck with me now, but I actually will be. using the mallet to definitely hit them to get a permanent permanent bond, so I'm going to do the same thing here, so I'm just going to widen that hole a little bit, take my brooch, put it on and do the same thing up here. and I do the same thing here and now again, I'm going to take these little snapshots, I'm going to put them on and you can see how beautiful it is and yes, it is beautiful, but it also serves to reinforce and make sure that the handle stays on, so I'm going to do the other side and then I'll be right back guys so we have our brooches on the front and back and don't you love this giant size taupe color?

So the last thing I'm going to do is I'm just going to add a piece of reinforcing chipboard to the bottom because if you put any weight on there, you're going to want to make sure that the bottom stays intact, so I'm going to bring a piece of my scrap. I added some double stick tape. the back of a 12 by 2 and 3 8 inch piece of chipboard. I'm going to lay it on top of that vinyl and then I'm just going to cut it out and I don't know about you, but I'm having a lot of fun with these. placemats I had no idea I would really enjoy working with them, but I do and there are so many fun things we can do and we can make them useful, but we can do them cheaply, so I'm just adding some masking tape to have I added a bit of double stick tape on the back and I'm just going to take this and place it on the inside and that will give me some extra stability at the bottom of this bag so if I decide to put some weight in there I won't have any problems with Let that weight not be supported, boys, and there we have it.

This is impressive. I wish they could see it in person, but they will because if they find these placemats, they will do this and you will fall in love all over again. I'll say this if you have an etsy or if you're doing craft fairs. This is a unique item. Imagine you are doing a craft fair and you really want to increase sales. Well, if you have an item like this for sale or it's the bag that you offer for free when a certain purchase amount is reached, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised how something like this can increase sales, so I'm going to bring the first of new and I apologize for the glare, but I have lights in the ceiling and they catch the glare on this vinyl.

These are absolutely beautiful bags. I can't say enough when you make them. I'm going to say the same thing when you finish it, you'll look at it and say, Wow! I did, so I hope you enjoyed this amazing vinyl placemat project. If you have, please hit the like button if you are not a subscriber to my channel I would love for you to join this amazing online crafting family guys as always please stay safe be kind happy crafting and We'll chat later, bye.