Remake Your Swag: Logo Bag Remix

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We all probably have promotional items we’ve accepted that are languishing on a shelf somewhere. Instead of letting them collect dust, you can use your crafty skills to turn them into something cute and useful!

My pal Lisa emailed recently about swag:

This summer I’ve gone to more than my fair share of special events/street festivals/conferences and picked up some free promotional item (called SWAG by the PR folks. It means Stuff We All Get) only to get it home and think, “Why did I say yes to yet another tote bag/t-shirt/whatever when I really could use a tote bag/t-shirt/whatever”? I know I have.

Instead of tossing it, I used my super special crafty powers to cover up that big ol’ logo on that free tote bag and turned it into something I want to carry around town or at least to the dog park.

She’s encouraging folks to do the same and post about it on our blogs for her Remake Your Swag party over at Condo Blues on the 22nd!

I’m so glad she’s organizing this! I actually had a swag-related project that I’d been putting off, and this was just the motivation I needed to get to it.

Dave went to a conference not too long ago and got the really nicely made messenger bag pictured above there. The big red dot is covering up the logo that was emblazoned on the front. Since I can’t use Photoshop to put a big red dot on there in real life, we decided to cover it up with some fabric instead.

It just so happened that I had a few swatches of fabric from Eden Organics, swag I’d gotten from the company to review at Crafting a Green World. So really, this is a double swag project! It was super simple.

All it took was the bag, fabric swatches, a leather needle (because the bag has a leather flap), and some embroidery floss. I thought about adding a circle that just covered the logo but decided to make it look super DIY with a patchwork stripe across the front and some big, hand stitchery to secure it onto the bag.

I quilted the three pieces of fabric together, folded the raw edges under and stitched them down, then used the leather needle and embroidery floss to sew the patchwork down onto the bag’s flap.

Easy peasy, and now Dave’s got a snazzy, personalized bag that he’s excited to use!

Have you guys done any swag remixes? I’d love to hear about them in the comments! On August 22nd, you can even head over to Condo Blues and submit your project to the carnival using the Mr. Linky in the sidebar. Fun!

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