"NUTS" FAVOR BAGS

This idea came to me when we were trying to put together a low-key bridal shower/celebration (for our son/daughter-in-law to be) at our family reunion in July.   Something simple, but meaningful since a good portion of my husband's family was going to be at the reunion, but many would not be able to attend the wedding in August.

So, in addition to a BBQ theme with a cake that my Mother-in-Law and I chose....I wanted to put together some shower favors. Something I could transport with me in my luggage and assemble once I got there.  I wanted my daughter-in-law to participate in the celebration so I knew we needed to keep her gluten-free diet in mind.   As I "googled", gluten free foods I came across a list that included nuts.  Woo Hoo!!! and the rest is history as they say.  I came up with the play on words and decided to use the burlap and lace theme from their invitations as part of the equation.

I made the "nuts about each other" tags using my silhouette machine.  I used a variety of fonts, some which I used on their wedding invitations and Save-the-Dates.

For the favor bags, I landed on a 5 x 5 final size. So I began by cutting strips of burlap 5" wide by 10" in length.   I also cut strips of lace trim in 5" strips.

Once I had all my pieces cut, I went to town stitching the bags together.  First I sewed the lace on; using a zig-zag stitch on both the top and bottom of the lace and then about 1/8" from the edge on both of the short ends to prevent fraying.   Finally, I folded the bags in half wrong sides together and used a zig-zag stitch to stitch the sides together.

I picked up plastic treat bags at Hobby Lobby so that I could portion out the nuts into them and then slide the plastic bags into the burlap.    The bags come in bulk (100 bags) for $2.99.  I also bought some gold twist ties (50 count) for $1.99. I knew I didn't want to place the nuts directly into the burlap bags since I was buying mixed nuts from Costco.

I was able to transport the sewn bags, tags, plastic treat bags and twist ties in a gallon freezer bag. It flattened out really well so they didn't take up much room in my luggage.  I bought the nuts when we reached Oregon.

Once all of the bags were filled, I tied each of the bags with jute twine, slid one of the tags onto the twine and tied them in a bow.  They looked really cute....and were an absolute hit with the family!  In fact, many of them said they were looking forward to eating them on their flights home.


This project really went together very easily.  I had a total of 28 of them to make so it didn't take me too terribly long.

These could be really fun as favors for a rustic chic wedding! To keep the cost down, you could used shelled peanuts or peanuts in the shell; both can be purchased in bulk.