Gift Bags and Gardening

Gift bags. Some of them are absolutely gorgeous. You can re-use them for gift-giving or even as a temporary tote, but what do you do if the bag is especially beautiful and you want to keep it? And has your name on it … literally has your name on it? You HAVE to keep it if it has your name on it! But what do you do with it?

You cover a gardening book.

Recently I received a beautiful gift bag full of wonderful gifts. I REALLY love this bag and wanted to keep it – more than just keep it, I wanted to make it a part of daily life. So I decided to upcycle it, using the design as a pretty cover on a plain composition notebook --- a full size notebook, not the teensy books I use as freebies.

DH and I are in the middle of landscaping projects and I wanted a gardening book for recording info – name of the plant, when and where we planted as well as pictures. Basically it’s a record of our gardening efforts. This wonderful gift bag was perfect for the cover.

Here’s the front.

Here’s the back.

I chose the placement of the design, cut it out a little larger than I needed, glued it to the front and back and trimmed to fit. I left the original black binding on the spine and I think it looks great.

I’m loving my new gardening book. Thanks Kirsten & Erika. Getting this bag was like getting an extra gift!