My fellow blogger and friend over at As The Bunny Hops recently posted an amazing DIY duct tape bag that she made to look like Oogie Boogie from The Nightmare Before Christmas. I showed my husband and asked if he thought we could make them a little bit bigger and use them as the girls’ trick or treat bags for Mickey’s Not So Scary Halloween Party at Disney World when we go. He pondered for a moment and then said “well, why not – but with actual burlap instead of duct tape.” So we headed to our local craft store and the rest is history!

The Bag

I started with burlap fabric twice as long as the size I wanted for the finished bag. I folded the fabric in half length wise with the inside of the bag facing out. Burlap isn’t really one-sided but I did have a seam on the edge of my fabric that I wanted on the inside. I then sewed up both sides with my overlock stitcher. This could be done with a regular sewing machine or possibly skipped and just held together with pins. The only reason I did it was to hold the edges together for the hand sewing next step.

I then turned the bag right-side out. Using a large knitting needle and thick yarn I hand sewed the three sealed sides of the bag. This was purely for decoration since I had already sewn the seams with my stitcher so I just made it the way I wanted it to look, which is jagged to match Oogie’s style.

The Drawstring

For the top I folded the bag back inside out and folded down an inch and a half. I placed a piece of drawstring in the fold and then using the yarn did a wide stitch to hold the fold over and the drawstring in. I had the ends of the string come out of the fabric in one of the edges. Then, I placed a drawstring stopper on the string and tied the ends together.

The Faces

For the face I used the cut file from As The Bunny Hops and cut out the faces on a piece of black suede cloth. I used the same yarn and large needle to sew on the faces to the front of the bag. To finish up the bags on the side opposite the drawstring I used the yarn to sew on a decorative spider.