Lunch Sack Scrapbooks--Update

Howdy all,

I wanted to give you some extra info on the lunch bag scrapbooks that I posted here.

We are doing them for our big Craft Day this Winter so I have been putting together prices and I actually made one last night as a gift for a pregnant friend of mine. It really doesn't take long if you have a good paper cutter that is accurate and fast (but not so fast you loose a finger!). I probably made mine last night in a little over an hour, start to finish, including the sewing of the sacks together, which is just one pass down the middle of them all with the sewing machine.

Here is a general price list and recipe list for what you will need:

I chose to use 4 of the paper bags, the regular old brown kind. I found these at Target for $1.40 for 50. They also had the choice of a solid color lunch bag in white or red and those were $1.40 for 40. Either one is a great deal, so they end up being either $0.03 or $0.04 each bag, and you need 4, so a whopping $0.16 per scrapbook.

For the paper, you will need something close to 5X5 paper and you can get 4 squares of that out of a 12X12 sheet (plus leftovers). Like I have said before, I generally use Stampin Up (SU) products because I like how everything matches and is true color matching, the ruby red ribbon matches the ruby red paper, etc...so my prices will be for SU products. Anyway, you would need 8 layouts for the whole book including the cover and each layout is 2 of the 5X5 papers, so a total of 16 squares of the 5X5 paper, which would be 4 sheets of 12X12 paper.

I like the "designer series" of papers by SU because they are card stock, double sided and you can fold over a side and show the other design or flip one side of the layout and you know it will still match the other side, etc. Plus, the designer series papers have designs on them, they are not just a solid color. So, I figured we could use 2 sheets of designer paper and 2 sheet of solid colored card stock.

Designer Series 12X12 paper is about $0.83 each, so 2 sheets would be $1.66 total
Card Stock 12X12 paper is about $0.37 each, so 2 sheets would be $0.74 total

So, your total costs up to this point for the paper bags and the paper to cover the "pages" is $2.56. Pretty economical!

And now for the other fun stuff. If you wanted to add embellishments, I was guessing we might add brads, buttons, paperclips, and ribbon.

Brads are about $0.05 each
Buttons are about $0.09 each
Assorted Clips are about $0.29 each
the 1/4 inch grosgrain ribbon is about $0.33 a yard

So, I guessed we would use ....
10 brads totalling $0.50
8 Buttons totalling $0.72
2 Clips totalling $0.58
2 Yards of Ribbon totalling $0.66

So, the embellishment total is $2.46

And the total for the book, paper, and embellishments is $5.02

Now, I know you can find fun papers and accessories for cheaper, so you can cut that down even more, I just love the quality and richness of colors that SU offers.

So anyway...that is the scoop....about $5 or less per book for everything!

If you did some punches or cut outs, those would be inexpensive because you can get a lot of punches out of one sheet of paper, so keep that in mind as you shop. Stickers are also economical.

You will probably want to personalize it and add even more, this is just the basic costs for a reference for you. For instance, you might want to put some pages in there that had little pull out cards on them so you would need more paper for that. Since the open ends of the bags make for natural little pockets, you could further embellish those areas and have more places for photos or what not.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes!