Birthday Book Bags - Amy Hill Creates

Personalized Birthday Gifts

I love birthdays … from cake to presents to celebrating with friends and family; birthdays are just a lot of fun. Having two kids means lots of birthday parties which means lots of buying birthday gifts. For birthday gifts, I prefer to give something that is personal and can be used over and over. This cycle of birthdays, I’m making personalized tote bags. I already posted on this, here but I have another example including what I put into the whole gift. For this project, I used my Cricut Explore Air, Cricut Iron On Lite, Cricut Vinyl to make: a personalized tote bag, pencil box and bookmark. I also made two birthday cards to go with these presents. Lots of ideas here so I will break them down as I hope this post will leave you inspired to make some birthday gifts.

Personalized Tote Bag

These tote bags are great for carrying a ton of stuff. I get the blanks at Michaels and use my Cricut and Design Space to build the design. The font is Pooh Marker from the Disney Pooh Font Cartridge. I used Create a Critter for the dog and Zooballoo for the lion. Cricut Iron on Vinyl is easy to use and comes in a variety of colors and styles. I have a post here that details how to use and layer iron on.

Personalized Bookmark

For the bookmarks, I cut a piece of 100lb cardstock to 2” wide by 7” long. I then chose a few different Washi tapes to wrap around the cardstock. I try to use different widths, patterns and textures to build interest. After the cardstock is wrapped in Washi tape, I adhere letters to the bookmark and laminate it using the Xyron create a station.

Personalized Pencil Case

For the pencil case, I purchased pencil cases from Michael’s. I then cut out names and shapes from Cricut vinyl and used transfer tape to smooth it onto the pencil case front. You can layer the vinyl on top of each other. Just make sure the bottom layer is smooth with no air bubbles.

One layer birthday cards

For this card, I built a top folding note card and made a cloudy background by applying Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass and Salty Ocean with a mini blending tool along a Creative Memories Scallop Edge Ruler. I kept moving the ruler to achieve a random cloudy pattern. After heat setting the Distress Inks, I heat embossed the sentiment in WOW silver Embossing Powder and colored in the letters with Tombow Markers. The balloons and critter are from a Mama Elephant stamp set and I colored with Copic Markers with minimal blending. The balloons and critter are adhered with foam squares. I used a rectangle nesting die set to cut out the frame and adhered the frame to the front of a top folding white notecard made from 110 Neenah Card Stock.

This card started out as a top folding A2 sized card made from 110 Neenah Solar White Card Stock. I placed tape along the fold and used a Hero Arts Triangle Stencil and A selection of Distress Inks in assorted rainbow order and applied them with a mini ink blending tool. I then cut out the Concord & 9th unicorn from theUnicorn Awesomness Stamp Set and colored it with Copics.The sentiment is from the same stamp set and was heat embossed with WOW gold powder. The stars are stamped with Studio G gold pigment ink.i cut out an additional unicorn from fun foam, glued the unicorn onto it and then glued that to the card. Using the fun foam helps to give an even layer instead of the foam tape (and no backing to peel off). Around the unicorn, I traced a line with my Krylon gold marker pen.

Tying it together

Although the tote bag is the star of this gift, I like to add in other items. Books, markers, stickers and a coloring book. For Yvette who is turning 7, I added the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein and Rescue & Jessica by Jessica Bachman. Inside the markerbox, I have a pack of new markers.
For Lilian who is turning 5, I added Just Like My Dad by David Melling and a Lion King book since she likes lions as well as new markers and a practice ABC 123s pad from Crayola.

If you are interested in purchasing any of the items I used today, please use the affiliate links below. With your purchase I may earn a small commission that is used to fund this blog. Thank you for your support and happy crafting!