Packing for De bePARKte Oplage

Today I prepared for De bePARKte Oplage in Antwerp, which will take place tomorrow (23rd of September) in Park Spoor Noord. I am looking forward to a special day, with lots of creative people, beautifully crafted items and many visitors, looking for unique products.

I will sell my purses, bags and pouches, my diy kits for creating your own cross stitch monogram tags, small gift boxes and bag tags. All made of tetrapack.

Hope to see you there!

Upcycled bag made of tetra

A while ago I pinned a nice upcycled bag on Pinterest, that I found on destinationweddingstore. I found that is was repinned immediately by other pinners. I adored this bag as well, and also the idea to create a bag out of tetra myself, because it is a durable and waterproof material. Last week I started this DIY project, and made myself a bag out of milk packs.

The result is pretty pretty: It is a small square bag with two handles, which can contain my wallet, phone, keys and agenda and more small stuff. I added one of my upcycled tags to one of the handels, to give it a personal touch. For my sewing machine, it was quite a heavy job: I broke two needles while making this bag, but it was definitely worth the effort.

I have a feeling that this is the first, but certainly not the last bag that I will make out of tetra. This first experiment will certainly be followed by other bags, purses, pouches and boxes. To be continued....

How to make an upcycled gift box?

Recently I found out how to easily create a gift box, using tetra pack. Tetra is a material that everyone has at home: it is the packaging of your juice or milk or many other nourishments. And you will probably throw away many of these packs weekly, without thinking of what a beautiful material this is. Tetra often has a wonderful silver gleam on the inside and an always surprising print on the outside.

You probably know the little purse made out of tetra tutorial, that is circulating on the internet. This is an awesome way to upcycle a tetra pack, but you can do so much more with tetra. For example: create a shiny little gift box. Below I describe how to cut and fold a basic box and a lid out of tetra. How to decorate it, that is up to your own imagination. Follow the steps to make your own!

1. Before you cut open your tetra pack, make sure that you clean it: pour some water in it, shake it (repeat ones or twice), then cut open the pack and rinse it again with water.

2. Dry it carefully with a towel.

3. Choose which side of the tetra should be on the outside of your gift box. In this example I choose to have the grassy print with the cows on the outside.

4. On the other side (the side that you want on the inside of your box) you draw with a pen the lines along which to cut or fold. For the dimensions, see the drawing above.

5. Use a cutting knife or scissors to cut out the two shapes, both box and lid.

6. Use a stump pencil (or any other object) to draw lines along the dashed lines to prepare for folding.

7. Put double sided tape on the indicated area's.

8. Fold the little faces inwards, and cover them with the faces that hold the double sided tape.

Et voilà! Your gift box is ready.

(Variations: Put the silver coloured side of the material on the outside and decorate it with ribbons, embellishments, thread, anything that comes to your mind. Or make a tiny little box by adjusting the dimensions, with just a little calculation extra.) For more examples of boxes and tags made of tetra, visit my Etsy shop.