We’ve recently published our free digital stamp gift bags for you to download, color and create your own unique gift packaging (this originally appeared on our site Away With The Pixels but we moved them here to Make Breaks where we host our free printables).
These cute coloring gift bags will be ideal for presenting small gifts and party favors.
These bags are a hybrid of gift bag and digital stamp. Instead of having the two separate and trying to line them up in your own software, here we’ve done the work for you. Another benefit of these gift bags is that the cutting and scoring lines won’t show on the finished bag, follow the tutorial below to see how it’s done. To make the bags it’s just a case of printing, coloring, cutting and assembling your gift bag. These cute digital stamp bags are available in a wide range of designs and you can customize them to your own style simply by adding your own color.
This tutorial will show you how to use these free digital stamp gift bags.
First, download and print the gift bag template. Then follow these instructions:
Identify the Score Marks
Because we don’t want to print anything on the outside of the gift bag, apart from the digital stamp image, we’ve added marks to the templates outside of the bag area that show where to score the paper or card that you’re using.
In the photo, you can see the slightly broken black lines have all been highlighted with a red circle, with a pair of marks on the side and four pairs on the top and bottom edges of the bag template. Next I’ll start scoring the card for the fold lines.
Score the Card
It’s essential that the fold lines are scored before cutting out the template, because once it’s cut out, the score marks will have been removed.
In the photo, you can see that I’ve lined up my steel rule between a pair of marks on the top and bottom edges and have started scoring across the sheet. Because these score lines will be on the outside of the finished bag, it’s important to make sure that you don’t break the surface fibers of the card, but just compress the fibers so that the card will fold easily.
Ideally, you’ll have something to help you score the paper or cardstock to hand (for example a bone folder), but a blunt knife or similar should do also. I’m using the smooth point of my granddad’s bradawl, that lost its sharp point many years ago, meaning that it runs quite smoothly over the surface.
You should make four vertical score lines and one horizontal line before continuing.
Cut Out the Template
With the five score lines made, you can now cut around the external light gray line. You’ll note that there’s a slight cutout below the flap so that it’s not a complete rectangle.
Cut the Slits for the Base Flaps
At the bottom of your now cut out gift box template, there are three light gray lines, though you may have obscured these when you scored your lines. Not to worry if so, because you just need to cut each slit upwards from the bottom edge until it meets the horizontal score line.
Fold the Scored Lines
At this point, your template is ready to be folded and glued. If you’ve scored your template correctly, it should fold easily and creasing each fold cleanly at this time will help to ensure that your finished gift bag looks as good as it can.
Remember that the digital stamp image should be on the outside so ensure that you’re folding your paper or card the correct way. The sharper eyed among you will already have noticed that I folded the example in the photo the wrong way, but I was using a blank template so I like to think I’m not that stupid.
Regardless of your opinion on the last point, let’s take a look at a finished gift bag on the next page.
Your Glued and Completed Gift Bag
Once all the folds have been made, constructing the box is super easy. As you can see in the photo, I used a glue stick, but any glue suitable for paper and card will do fine for this.
Glue the flap on the outside so that you press it to the inside of the side of the bag. Once that is set, you can finish the base.
Firstly fold in the short, square flaps and then fold the two longer flaps over. Lift the last of the long flaps and apply your glue to it and then push it back into position. To ensure a strong bond, you can sit the bag on a flat surface and apply pressure with a pen or similar item through the opening of your gift bag.
At this point you should have a small gift bag similar to the one in the photo. All you’ve got to do now is find something to go in it!
Use a sticker or piece of washi tape to fasten the bag if you want to close the top.
