Make a gift bag from magazine pages

Yours truly has been traveling two states within one week and has a load of houseguests coming tomorrow, so please excuse that this is sort of a lamely easy and not entirely original DIY project.

Personally I have no problem shelling out 50 cents for a dollar store gift bag or (more likely) shamelessly reusing a gift bag that was given to me. However, for those times when you are far from the dollar store and no one has gifted you with the right-sized little baggie, you can do as I have and tear a few pages out of your current issue of InStyle magazine.

This project was inspired by a smaller gift bag project by Art Mind via Totally Tutorials.

To make a gift bag, you will need:

• four sheets of magazine pages
• a fifth sheet for a ribbon
• scissors or a paper cutter (recommended)
• scotch tape
• stapler (for ribbon)

Tear out the pages. Trim off the rough edge.

Cut two of the magazine pages in half.

Fold two of the halves in half.

Discard one of the halves. (Or use it toward your ribbon.) Cut the remaining half so that its length equals the width of your magazine pages.

Turn everything ugly side up and tape as much as possible from the inside. Fold the "front" over the top and tape the sides and bottom.

To make a ribbon, tear out an additional magazine page and cut in one-inch strips. Fold the end around to make a loop and staple in the middle. Stack the loops and staple them all together. Hide the staples with a remaining strip rolled up into a tight circle and taped to the middle.

Not bad for packaging a homemade gift or maybe something that actually is Gucci. (Fool them all with the cheap bag.)

Extra credit: Make a Sigourney Weaver gift card. (Sigourney via page 171 of the December InStyle if you are so inclined.)