Keep your kids nourished with yummy treats and meals kept warm in this fun and cute lunch bag! Find out how to recreate this cool DIY back-to-school project by reading on.
DIY Lunch Bag Perfect for the Incoming School Year
The school year is upon us yet again and the worries if our kids are eating well at school come with it. Luckily, we can always prepare delicious and nutritious food our kids would love! Make packed lunch even more appealing by putting them inside a DIY lunch bag made out of your love and mad sewing skills! Want to learn how? Follow these easy steps!
Materials You’ll Need to Make a Lunch Bag:
- Fabric
- Batting Fabric or Fleece
- Rotary Cutter
- Pins and Scissors
- Sewing Machine and Thread
- Basting Spray
- Ruler
- Iron and Board
Step 1: Measure Your Lunch Box
In this tutorial, we already have a lunch box we’re going to put inside our lunch bag. Get your lunch box and measure the dimensions of it – length, width, and height.
Step 2: Make a Fabric Diagram
For this tutorial, we are making a quilting pattern. So as we go on, we are going to sew all the fabrics at the same time. We used this fabric diagram to guide us on how much to cut and which ones to assemble together. The purple rectangles and squares are the backing fabric, which is an inch larger on all sides than the quilt batting and fabric strips (see left.)
From the diagram, your lunch box’s width would also be the width of your quilt batting. Your fabric strips are also equal in width as your lunch box’s width. The length of your quilt batting, meanwhile, depends on how tall you want your lunch bag to be.
Step 3: Position Your Quilt Batting and Backing Fabric
To give you a better idea of how it all looks like, this photo shown above is how your quilt batting and fabric should be assembled. Still with us? Let’s move on to the next step!
Step 4: Cutting the Strips
Take your fabric strips and cut them according to your lunch box’s width. Now here’s the fun part: arrange your fabrics the way you want them to look like. Have fun mixing and matching which fabrics look great together. Lay them out together so all you’ll need to do is sew them together later.
Step 5: Spray Your Batting Piece With a Basting Spray
This step is essential to keep your batting pieces from slipping around. The basting spray is basically a spray-on adhesive, which keeps your fabric together. Simply spray onto your batting pieces. Then, put your batting piece on the wrong side of your fabric. Rub your hands over the batting piece to secure it in place.
Step 6: Attaching the Strips to the Batting
For your first strip, spray on some basting spray over it before placing it over the batting piece. Rub over your strip to secure it in place before sewing the top side of it in place.
Step 7: Attaching the Succeeding Strips
After you’ve sewn your first strip in place, we’re ready to sew the next one. Place your next fabric over your first strip, right sides together. Then, attach them together by sewing along the bottom edge of these fabrics.
Repeat this step until you’ve sewn all remaining fabric strips. Top stitch the bottom of the last fabric strip to secure it in place. For that extra batting hanging out of your fabric strips, you can trim them off for an easier time.
Tip: After adding each strip, press the seam flat by running an iron over it. This will make it easier for you to attach the remaining strips.
Step 8: Sewing the Side Panel
To make your side panels, make a fabric sandwich of your fabric, batting, and front fabric. Spray on a little bit of basting spray to keep your fabric sandwich intact. Sew along the sides and get as close to the edges as you can.
Step 9: Assembling All Pieces Together
For this step, you might want to use the fabric diagram from step 2 as a guide. To assemble everything together, you need to find the midpoint of your centerpiece and side panels by folding each piece in half. Then, position your side panels such that their midpoints are aligned to the midpoint of your centerpiece. Sew these piece together just through the thin fabric and not the batting fabric. Repeat this step for the other side panel.
Step 10: Sewing the Sides Together
At this point, you can easily see what goes where. Sew the sides of your lunch bag by sewing the edges of the wrong sides together. Do it for all three corners until you get that boxy shape we’re going for.
Step 11: Attach Straps
Now, you have your lunch bag together! As a finishing touch, add straps to your bag to make it handier. Cut strips of your front fabric, or any fabric of your choice. Press it down for an easier top stitching. Attach to the tops of your bag and voila! This is how our lunch bag looked like:
You can also watch the video tutorial from the frugal crafter Lindsay Weirich to get a step-by-step guidance over this project:
This DIY lunch bag is one of the most practical back-to-school sewing projects! Making this lunch bag comes with a lot of benefits, too! You’re sure your kids eat something good while in school, save money from buying paper bags every time, and get to help save the environment with less waste! What a steal, right?
Do you have other DIY lunch bag ideas? Let us know in the comments below!
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Editor’s Note – This post was previously published on May 27, 2016, and has since been updated for quality and relevancy.