Bridesmaid's Gifts DIY

So for our wedding I wanted to do something unique and special for the bridesmaids. I like the personal touch more than some gift I bought because I had to. I want to thank my bridesmaid, while making their gift personal. I have made each girl a charm bracelet that represents them and our relationship. With that I also made an ornament (since our wedding is in December) that holds all of the left over decorations from our wedding. The last part of their gift is a personalized tote/canvas bag. It was a fun (and cheap!) way to give them a personal gift.

Below is a how-to on the bikini bag I made. It's for a bridesmaid that is fun and goes to Florida often.

The above picture was without being permanently placed down.

The materials needed for this bag:

• canvas bag from Hobby Lobby ($2 on sale)
• ribbon for the handle
• fabric for the swimsuit (I grabbed two fabric squares at Joann Fabrics on sale for $1 each)
• a button or clip for the top part of the suit

The great thing about this project is that you can use hot glue... no sewing involved! If you wanted to sew it you could, but I found it to work just the same with gluing. 

So I began by cutting the top part of my swimsuit out to the size I wanted. You could do the width of the bag or make it smaller. You don't even have to iron it out because you bunch it enough to where you can't see the wrinkles.

Then I cut out the bottoms of the bikini. They were about the size of my scissors. You simply have to fold the material in half and cut the basic shape of swimsuit bottoms. 

I glued all of the edges over so that they did not fray (just as if you were sewing something). 

Then you simply just bunch the top material together to form a bikini like top. I glued the sides down first where I wanted them. 

I then bunched the middle and glued in spots that I wanted down on the canvas. 

You can either sew or glue the button down. Originally I chose this pearly button, but decided later that the bridesmaid this bag is for what not about pearls, but rather a hot pink big button. I just hot glued it to the center of the bikini top. 

I then added ribbon that connected the bikini stop to the strap of the canvas bag. I simply just glued this down as well. 

I really like how the bag turned out. I did a different bag for each girl (posted below). I will add the directions to the other bags soon!