Welcome bags have become a staple at weddings in the past couple years. And while I usually try to do exactly opposite of whatever's "in" at the time, I really wanted to have welcome bags for all the guests staying at the hotel.
I started looking for cute gift bags, but anything that wasn't white or tan seemed to be $3 each...and that wasn't going to work. I wish I remembered where I found the link, but when I clicked on it, there was a beacon of gift-bag light.
How perfect! I could screen print them, fill them with goodies, and guests could actually keep and reuse them! Less waste!
I wanted something that was pretty gender neutral (no cherry blossoms) and I didn't want anything with our names, initials, or dates on it. Who wants to use a "Jay and Renee 24/7!" tote at the grocery store?
I found this adorable clip art at iStockPhoto and it worked perfectly!
I Gocco'd the image onto each tote using navy blue ink. TIP: I had a little trouble with the ink bleeding through, so I put a magazine inside each tote before I printed the image. I let them dry for 24 hours then, to make sure that it doesn't wash out, I heat set each print with an iron.
As I've probably mentioned a few times, most of our guests were from out of town and planned to explore DC a little while they were in the area. So not only did we fill the bags with the usual water, gum, advil, and granola bars, we added business cards from a local cab company, DC Metro guides, and vintage Washington DC postcards.
So definitely think about using canvas bags instead of paper. Who knew they were so cheap! Plus the guests were really wowed!
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