Sparkle Crafts
Sparkle Craft: Custom Sparkle Stories Lunch Bags

A new school year is starting and I am feeling the excitement. One of my favorite parts of back-to-school shopping when I was a kid was picking out a new lunchbox. It was usually plastic and festooned with cartoon characters. While I loved them then, I have grown up and recognize that there are more sustainable options for packing a lunch. We love our stainless steel bento boxes, our PlanetBoxes, and our tiffins. But sometimes, an old-fashioned lunch bag is just what is needed. It fits easily into a backpack, it's easy to throw in the laundry, and best of all — it's so fun to customize!

This school year, the kids are packing their lunches in Sparkle Stories lunch bags. There are lots of options for making your own and it's as simple as you make it.

Choose Your Image

Which Sparkle Stories character/s do your kids like best? Explore our website and pick an image. Right click on it and save it to your computer.

Gather Your Supplies

First, you'll need a fabric lunch bag. You can make your own, if you're feeling crafty, or buy one. I used these cotton canvas lunch bags.

Then you'll need to decide on a craft medium. There are loads of ways to go about this — make a stencil and use fabric paint or silkscreen ink, print your image on iron-on transfer paper and press it on to your bag, use fabric markers.... or you can do what I did! I used what I had on hand, which was a bunch of Sharpie markers and embroidery supplies.

Transfer the Image

Place the image you've chosen inside the lunch bag and hold it up to a bright window. Trace the image with a pencil (you could use an erasable fabric marking pen if you have one — mine was dried out). Don't worry — the pencil markings will be covered by your ink or thread and won't show when you're finished.

Decorate Your Lunch Bag

I started with my Junkyard Tales lunch bag. I traced the outline with Sharpies (be sure you test them on scrap paper first! Some of mine were dried out and I would not have liked the streaky lines on my bag. Also, why are so many of my markers dried out? Do you have that problem too?) This only took a few minutes and the results are super cute!

I decided to make another one and increased the difficulty level a smidge. I embroidered this sweet toadstool fairy character in colors that made me happy using a simple stem stitch. It's not fancy embroidery, and it's not perfect, but I really like it. You can use any stitch you like, of course, because you are the boss of your own embroidery!