DIY Valentine’s Day Treat Bags

Hello Graphics Fairy friends! I’m Diana from Dreams Factory and I’m happy to be here again to share another DIY project with you! Today I will show you how to make these super fancy DIY Valentine’s Day Treat Bags that have a lovely vintage vibe. We could have also named this post Faux Kraft Glassine Treat Bags because we’ll use a special type of paper with a beautiful sheerness, similar to glassine to make them. The bags are embellished with a gorgeous heart-shaped vintage frame on top and a little bit of gold on the edges.

I wanted to make the bags more universal so they can be used for other occasions too, not only for Valentine’s Day, so I used gold brads to hold the vintage heart in place. This way you’ll have the option to use the bags as they are or simply pin a different image to decorate them. So we can say these beauties are highly adaptable and easy to use no matter your needs! My favorite type of DIY project!

The special paper that we will use to make the bags is tracing paper. I just love the sheerness this paper brings to any project! And the fact that you can directly feed it through your printer to print whatever you want is definitely a huge plus. You can see below how sheer this paper is, I sometimes like to include clear or printed tracing paper into my junk journal, just to add a little bit of variation and I’m always amazed by how beautiful it looks.

Free Printable

You will find below the two printables that I created for this project. You’ll need the first one to make the faux kraft glassine bags – you will be able to make two bags from this printable. If you need more than two, you can print it as many times as you want!

—> Click here to download the full size Printable PDF <—

We’ll use the second printable one to decorate the bags, but I included a few more hearts that can be used on other projects too.

—> Click here to download the full size Printable PDF <—

DIY Valentine’s Treat Bag Supplies:

tracing paper
home printer
scissors
pinking shears or decorative edge scissors
Mod Podge, paper glue stick or double-sided tape
gold wax
cotton swabs
single-hole paper punch
gold brads
a plastic sheet or a non-absorbent surface to protect your working space
gold washi

Step by Step Tutorial:

Start by printing the two printables on tracing paper. Use your scissors to roughly cut the rectangles with the hearts. If you want, you can use them like this, with the rectangles or you can remove the outside background and only use the frame hearts.

Tracing paper will curl and warp when in contact with wet mediums, but it sometimes does that after cutting it in a specific shape too. So what I’ve noticed is that if you cut it on the back, it doesn’t warp that much. In the image below is the back of the heart, as you can see the design is a little bit softened but perfectly visible on the back too so you’ll be able to cut it.

Keep in mind that if you want to make more than two bags, you’ll need to print the background printable several times. Use your scissors to remove the white excess paper all around the edges.

Fold the tracing paper in half and then cut it right in the middle, following that folded line. I found it easier to use a knife to cut it.

I printed the background printable two times, so after cutting them in half, I had four pieces of paper that would allow me to make four bags.

Take one of the pieces of paper and fold it, making sure you leave a little bit of space on the right to create a flap. Fold the flap over the already folded pieces underneath.

Use a little bit of glue to adhere the flap on the right to the paper underneath. I used a glue stick because I thought it would work best with my inkjet print. A wetter glue like craft glue will smear an inkjet-printed design, so it would be best to avoid it if using an inkjet printer. If you use a laserjet printer, the smear won’t be a problem.

Use a small amount of glue, but keep in mind that the paper will warp no matter the glue you are using. A great alternative to prevent that will be to use a double-sided tape. I couldn’t find mine anywhere, so I used the glue stick instead. I don’t mind the warps all that much, especially since they will flatten down a little bit after drying. But if that’s a problem for you, just use the double-sided tape instead!

Then fold the bottom part of your bag going upward and use your scissors to snip the ends in an angle. Use your scissors again to cut the top layer of your folded bottom, we only need to keep the layer underneath to create another flap.

Follow the same steps on the top of the bag too – fold it downward, snip the ends and cut the top layer of paper to create a flap with the layer underneath. Use pinking sheers or any other type of decorative scissors to decorate the very top end of your bag, this will give it that specific edge glassine bags usually have.

Another way would be to fold everything first and then make all the cuts and the gluing.

It will be easier to cut everything first, especially when it comes to using your pinking sheers and only then glue the flaps. You can use the use the pinking sheers to decorate other edges too, just experiment on your own and see which method you prefer.

Another option would be to overlap the paper right in the middle and not on the side.

I actually liked this method better because the glued paper doesn’t show all that much from underneath.

Use a paper punch (I like using my leather punch because it has different punching options) to make a hole in the heart frame and the top layer of your bag. Use a gold brad to pin the heart to the bag. If you prefer to glue the heart instead, you can, that double-sided tape would come in handy here too!

Use a little bit of gold all around the edges. I used some gold wax to gild the edges this time, but you can also use a gold marker (I love the one from DecoColor) instead.

Use your finger to apply the wax or a cotton swab if you want to keep your hand mess-free.

I love how sophisticated these beauties turned out, and the fact that they were quite easy to make is definitely a huge plus!

You can use Valentine’s Day stamps if you want to further embellish your faux glassine bags. I actually liked them better this way, but of course, if you prefer to add something else, feel free to personalize them to your heart’s content!

I usually use the tracing paper pad from Herlitz (65gsm) which is quite affordable and I just feed the pages through my printer. I used this paper with my previous laserjet printer and now I use it with my inkjet printer without any problems. If you don’t find this specific brand, I’m sure others will work too, just experiment with what you have on hand.

Keep in mind that tracing paper is not meant to be used this way, we are kind of improvising and pushing its limits to new horizons here. It will curl and warp like crazy if used with wet mediums, so keep this in mind when you conduct your own experiments.

I hope you will love this DIY project and decide to give it a try! You can fill these fancy treat bags with all sorts of goodies, sweet little messages or even treat them as envelopes to hold precious love letters for your Valentine. You can add them to flower bouquets or use them as tags for other special gifts for Valentine’s Day. Use a little bit of gold washi tape to seal the bags, but also to add more oomph to these beauties, they re highly adaptable, so feel free to customize them as you want and adapt them to your needs!