packed lunch ideas

Archive for the tag “packed lunch ideas”

27 May 2015

Juice Pouch Party Food Box or Favour Bag

You know when you go to a children’s party and for their tea they each have a party food box? Such a great idea – each child is given their own food, with no bun-fight involved! There is less food wasted and everyone can eat a balanced and sensible amount (within reason!) I hate to see all those cartons thrown away at the end of the meal. It’s obviously easy and convenient to dispose of everything, but what a waste!

Here’s my solution: a mini Capri Sun bag with handle – 100% recycled apart from the thread that holds it together and the ribbon trim.

What I think is nice about my latest juice pouch upcycle is that it can be used and reused – these bags are easy to wipe clean or can be washed up with the dishes and left to air dry. Now, the party food box can easily be emptied, even given a quick wipe, and used as the party favour bag too, for each child to take home his or her goodies at the end of the party.

I’m thinking maybe even treasure hunt bags or Easter egg baskets too? The possibilities are endless…!

I’m popping this little number in my Etsy shop, do take a look at this and my other juice pouch upcycles if you’re into eco-friendly bags. I’m trying to get to a stage where I have one for every occasion 😉 I’m currently working on a zippered lunch box for picnics or long journeys, when the insulated pouches can really come into their own and keep food cool and fresh.

What’s everyone else recycling? Leave me a comment, or if you Tweet join in #makedoandmendhour hosted by Jen on Twitter, Thursdays from 8-9pm UK time – I drop by when I can 🙂

Posted in Storage, Upcycled or Repurposed and tagged bags, cheap craft ideas, DIY, Easy crafts, Etsy, gifts, handmade, homemade, lunchbox, packed lunch ideas, rainy day fun, recycled, Repurposed, Sewing & Fabric, Upcycled

12 Dec 2014

4 Comments

Doing the Etsy thing…

The Lunchbags go live – now available for purchase

Hello lovely readers! Long time no post, I know: I’ve been busy making these little numbers ready for a Christmas Fair and now Etsy – do pop over and have a look at my shop. Your feedback is welcome! I’m hoping these eco-friendly lunch bags will inspire kids and parents alike in the quest for interesting packed lunches! They are great fun to make and I have an unfailing supply thanks to the fantastic recycling efforts of the dinner ladies where I work!!

My shop is here – I’m hoping to continue stocking over the coming weeks with more recycled, repurposed and upcycled loveliness. Watch this space! x

Base view - recycled foil juice pouch bag

Posted in Homemade gifts, Upcycled or Repurposed and tagged back to school, bags, cheap craft ideas, Christmas, denim jeans, DIY, diy teacher gift, Easy crafts, Etsy, gift wrapping, gifts, handmade, homemade, lunchbox, packed lunch ideas

02 Sep 2014

9 Comments

Back to School – Upcycled Juice Pouch Lunch Bag

Let your child be the Green Hero of the school with a fun recycled lunch bag!

Lunch bag made from recycled juice pouches

This is a quick and easy upcycle that older children can get involved in making for themselves: a lunch bag made from repurposed foil juice pouches of the likes of Capri Sun.

There are loads of tutorials online for stitching these juice pouches into fun upcycled items such as wallets, totes and pencil cases – all of which I will attempt at a later date as this is such a quick and fun craft! My favourite tutorial is here at Instructables.com which requires only the following items:-

14 juice pouches (used!)
sharp knife & scissors
sewing machine and thread
ribbon (I used webbing strap instead, as you’ll see)
Optional – velcro closure ( didn’t bother with this)

First things first: get your children sugared up to the eyeballs by drinking their way through 14 Capri Suns or similar juice pouch drinks! This is obviously best done over a period of time rather than all in one go or they won’t be able to concentrate at the sewing machine very well 😉 For our lunch bag, we had managed to acquire 12 pouches and then as luck would have it we met up with friends and they were drinking Capri Sun from France (how exotic!) so we added their two pouches to the mix!

French Capri Sun adds some Chic to the Shabby!

First things first – Getting Started

The pouches need to be slit open so they can be cleaned out thoroughly with hot soapy water and left to drain dry. I have to fess up to a slight bodge here à la ShabbyShe – I slit mine at the top (above the straw hole) instead of underneath (in the hidden pouchy part) where it would never be seen! As a consequence I had to be careful to overlap my stitching to close the opening I had made.

Simply stitch pouches together using a sewing machine

Start by stitching 2 together

Making the front, back, sides and bottom panels

As you can see from the pictures, I started by sewing 2 pouches together (top to bottom) and making sure I overlapped them just enough to close the (incorrectly applied!) slit at the top. To these 2 pouches I added 2 more to make a front panel of 4 pouches, then did the same for the reverse of the bag. Lining up was easy as the straight lines are all there for you, and even though I used 2 different brands of juice they were a standard size.

For the sides of the bags I did the same but just used 2 pouches. The bottom required slightly more effort as you have to join 2 pouches but cut them to the width of the front panel. I joined mine bottom to bottom as the Aldi juice pouches have cute apples with eyes which are more interesting than the logo 🙂

Attaching handles

The handles I’ve used for this bag are webbing strap which you can order online or buy in a fabric shop – I have this one in red, green and taupe and had a hard time choosing my favourite for this project! I zizgzagged the straps onto the bag then added a cross box type of stitch to secure (not sure if there’s a proper name for this? Do let me know if you know!)

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Once the handles are on, all you do is stitch all the parts together – easier than I thought it would be. I started by attaching the front panel to the bottom of the bag by joining them wrong sides together – this was not specified in the Instructables tutorial but I felt in contrast to “normal” bag making it would look better with external seams – the picture above of the sewing machine shows me doing this part. The picture below, however, shows the hazards of working with quite thick materials and a rather blunt needle…. Oops :S

Disaster strikes – a squiffy needle!

New needle in place, I soldiered on!

All parts attached, ready to whizz up the sides to finish 🙂

This is how it looks inside before the final side stitching is done. I have to say here that I doubted my methods briefly looking at other people’s bags online – they all seem to have plain silver inside and I wondered whether you are supposed to cut the juice bags open and remove the backs. But I decided that maybe American Capri Sun pouches don’t have all this stuff on the back. The ones pictured here are from Aldi mostly, as you can see.

So that’s it, it’s so easy and fun! The hardest part is getting enough pouches for lunch bags for everyone, although the kids do enjoy that part!! They didn’t help with the construction for this project but I’m sure in a year or so my eldest could. I might get him to wear goggles though, in case of needle-breakage!