Trick or Treat Bags Halloween Tote Bags

Learn how to repurpose tote bags into Halloween trick-or-treat bags with a little dye, black felt, and our free printable.

Halloween these days is a completely different animal than when I was a kid. When I was little we worked with what we had at home to make costumes (normally centering around an expensive and once worn dance recital costume). And I didn’t always have a store-bought trick or treat pail. In fact, most of the time I didn’t. Sometimes I’d carry a pillowcase or even a paper grocery bag.

But these days parents purchase a new pail every year! That seems crazy to me! And I realized that when short on space-saving a huge plastic pumpkin isn’t really ideal. Especially not when they cost only a buck. And that seems like a heck of a lot of waste ’cause you know these suckers are making their way to landfills rather than recycling bins.

Trick or Treat Halloween Tote Bags

So I decided to knock out some bags for my nephews that can be easily stored for next year. These cloth bags came out of an economy set and were just sitting around my craft room with no purpose. A $3 package of dye and one $0.25 sheet of black felt later and I had super cute and easily storable because they’re foldable Halloween bags!

Items Needed for Trick or Treat Halloween Tote Bags

• White tote bags
• Orange dye
• Black felt
• Good, sharp scissors
• Freezer paper (optional but amazingly helpful)
• Free printable from Craft Buds

How to Make Trick or Treat Halloween Tote Bags

Here is my plain old white tote bag. Nothing special, pretty boring. And there is my black cat who felt it was important to be involved in a Halloween craft, apparently.

Fold into any tie-dye pattern you like (a Google search will help you find directions for many).

Add your dye to water according to package directions and then dye according to those directions. I used Tulip and added mine into steaming hot water with 1/4 cup of salt. I then stirred my bags for 15 minutes and let them sit an additional 45 before rinsing out.

Be sure to rinse out well, or if it rains on Halloween you just might have some orange-stained kids! Allow the bags to dry fully and hit them with a hot iron if they are overly wrinkly.

If you’re using freezer paper, take out a ruler and trim a piece to fit inside of your printer. I cut mine to an 8.5 x 11 inch, standard sheet size. Take your free printable from Craft Buds and work it out by zooming in the print size on the areas you want (because there are several options for eyes, noses, and mouths to piece together into one awesome face) and get it worked out on a regular piece of paper. THEN copy that onto your freezer paper, making sure it does NOT print on the waxy side. Oh, and for a regular tote bag size, you can get two faces worth on one piece of paper.

If you’re using regular paper, you don’t have to get it all on one page!

Attach your printed jacko parts to your felt by hitting it with a hot iron. Feel around and if you can’t pull the freezer paper up easily it’s ready to continue.

If you’re using regular paper, trim around the shapes and use straight pins to attach to your felt.

Using good and sharp scissors, trim out your shapes.

Using felt glue, or whatever you have on hand, really, attach your face to the center of your tote.

Allow to dry flat and then this reusable trick or treat bag is ready to rock!

And just in case you want to see that fine-looking Halloween kitty with his new trick or treat bag, there you go!

Allison

A crafter since her earliest years, Allison spends a little time every day making something. She crafts, sews, paints, glues things onto other things, and is a firm believer that a life spent creating is a life worth living. Visit Allison’s blog, Dream {a Little} BIGGER.