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Craft with Resene, from the Australian Women's Weekly

Create a family tradition for your children or grandchildren, by making these easy, personalised Santa sacks to hold Christmas goodies for years to come.

Make santa sacks for your family

These Santa sacks can be made any size you prefer. We made ours a little smaller than a standard pillow case.

What you need

1 metre of plain coloured drill fabric (each bag)
Scissors
Iron
Sewing machine and matching thread
One pack of adhesive A4 labels
Pen
Craft knife
Cutting mat

A3 cardboard
1.5 metres of coloured ribbon, cord or similar
Peg for threading ribbon
Kaisercraft timber letters
Resene paints and testpot brush. We used: Resene Shilo and Resene Indian Ink

Sewing Guide

right side

right side

Choose a ribbon that will fit the casing at the top.

Items you will need

Instructions

Cut fabric approximately 1 metre x 75cm. This allows for seams and folded top. With the right side of fabric facing down, fold over the top edge approximately 6cm. Iron flat.
Fold both sides in approximately 1cm so they overlap the top fold. Iron flat (pic A). This will give the top of the bag a tidy finish.
Fold down the top again by another 5cm to create the casing for the drawstring ribbon to go through. Press and pin in place, then sew across the bottom edge (pic B).
Fold fabric in half vertically, with right sides facing. Pin, then sew the folded-in sides together, starting from sewn line at the top of the bag (pic C).
Sew across the bottom of the bag about 2cm from fabric edge. For added strength, sew across it once or twice more in zigzag stitch (pic D). Turn the bag right side out.

Pic 1

Pic 1

Finished santa sack

Before threading the drawstring, place a piece of card inside the bag so when you paint the stars it doesn’t bleed through to the other side. To make a star pattern trace around a cookie cutter onto a piece of adhesive label paper. Cut the stars out using a craft knife leaving enough paper around the edge to protect the fabric (pic 1). Peel and stick star stencils firmly so all edges are sealed. Paint two coats of the Resene testpot colour and leave to dry before peeling sticker off to reveal the star.
To make the drawstring, use a piece of wide ribbon 1.5 metres long or similar (remember the casing for this is only 5cm wide). Attach a peg to one end of the ribbon and feed this through the casing at the top of the bag (pic E), Once threaded through, remove the peg. If you are adding extra decorations, thread those on first before tying the ribbon ends together and trimming.
To personalise these bags we used MDF wooden letters, drilled a hole for threading and painted them in Resene Shilo and Resene Indian Ink.

Resene Shilo

Resene Indian Ink

Project by Marsha Smith, December 2019

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