Wash cloth party bags

I hate throw-away plastic party bags. I hate the waste of it mostly. To be honest, I don't like the whole concept of party bags very much, but the children are used to them, so I give them out at the end of children's parties.

Every time a birthday party comes round I'm tempted to make my own cloth drawstring bags. Then I remind myself that it would take me several hours to make just one, and that I can't borrow my mother-in-law's sewing machine anymore because I've moved away, and that I'm not that great at sewing in the first place. A girl I went to school with started a company making cloth party bags in the UK, - they look stunning, have a look: www.charliemoos.co.uk 

In the past I've used paper sandwich bags which are recyclable and biodegradable. You can also write on them so they are easy to transform from boring old brown paper bag to something special. For my daughter's mermaid-themed party I drew a mermaid on each one and let my daughter colour them in.

For the latest birthday party I was really struggling for ideas for party bags. I was about to go down the plastic bag route out of desperation (though it had got to the end of my allocated shopping time and I hadn't seen any of those either). Then, on my way out of the shopping mall I walked through the towel department of the shop I was in and I noticed some pocket face towels. If you're not familiar with them, they are two small rectangular towels sewn together to make a kind of glove to put over your hand. Perfect, I thought! It's a party bag, but it is also an object that is useful, reusable, pratical and, crucially, not very expensive (I needed 15).

I managed to find some face cloths in bright happy colours, and to tie them up I chose to pass a red elastic cord through the little loop which these face cloths have on the side. I initially considered using a ribbon, but most 5 year olds can't tie bows, so I went for the elastic instead, and to make them more interesting I printed out a the design I had made for the invitations, punched a hole through each one and ran the elastic through the hole before tying it.

I try not to fill my party bags with plastic tat, and I think very carefully about what to put in. The filling for the latest lot was: bubble mixture, Post-It notes, a coloured marker, a few sunflower seeds for planting, a small bag of sweets, and of course the wash cloth party bag. In total the cost was 3 euro per party bag.