Back to School Craft: Decorate Snack Bags for School Lunches

We recently invited my son’s bestie over for an art playdate. We are reviewing products from Oriental Trading Co. and I thought these decorate your own canvas snack bags would be a great back to school craft for the boys to do yet still easy enough for Little Sister (3 yrs old) to join in on the fun. This will be my son’s first year going to full day school (1st grade).  Making his own personalized lunch/snack bag is a fun way to get him excited about school lunches.

How to make the DIY Snack Bags

*Disclosure: We received these products free of charge from Oriental Trading Co. No other compensation was received. All opinions are my own thoughts and experiences with the products mentioned. Please see my full disclosure policy here. This post also contains affiliate link.

Supplies Needed:

• snack bags
• fabric markers or fabric paint
• pencil
• paper or cardboard to place inside to prevent it from leaking through to the other side
• craft trays – optional

Instructions:

Have each kid decide on a design for both the front and back. Big Brother is obsessed with penguins so it was no surprise when he told me he wanted to make penguins. Little Sister wanted a princess one and their friend asked for a Super Mario Brothers theme.

Draw the designs in pencil first. My son drew a penguin on one side and I drew one on the other side. For the Super Mario Brothers drawings, I did a quick Google search for clipart to look at while drawing.

Outline with a fabric marker.

Color in the designs with fabric markers – we used these Crayola fabric markers. I love that they were not messy and reminded me of regular markers. They were also easy for the kids to use.

My daughter likes to have sparkly everything so I got out our purple glitter fabric paint to decorate the crown. I was so impressed with how well she colored her snack bag. A lot of times when others are coloring around her, she will try to be fast and it ends up looking like scribbles a lot of times. She took her time with this project and colored so nice and neat.

I really like how the Super Mario-inspired one turned out!

These DIY snack bags can be used to hold things like an apple or orange. The drawstring makes it easy to close. They can also be used for other things instead of a place to store snacks. We plan to use 2 of them to create pirate loot bags for their gold coins.

What would you make instead of a snack bag or what design would your kids draw?

Originally posted 8/11/2014
Updated 7/30/2017

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Amanda

Artsy Momma

Amanda is an ‘artsy momma’ to 2 kids who love making crafts just as much as she does. Follow their creative journey over on the blog titled Artsy Momma. Besides crafts, they share fun food ideas, hands-on learning activities, mommy DIY, + lots more! If you love handprint art, head over to their Fun Handprint Art blog where you will find hundreds of their projects all made with little hands and feet.