Little Totes of Love

After selecting the goodies for our out of town bags (OOT bags), we had to package them.  This happened in overwhelming part due to my sister, brother in law, mom and dad. Where me and Kevin were, I have no idea. Useless.

We placed the homemade spiced peanuts and granola in clear cello bags (*premium*, no less) in the 2.5 x 2 x 6 size.  The bags were not long enough on top to tie with a ribbon (planning doh!), so we folded them down, punched in a few staples, and hot glued some hand-tied ribbons made with purdy gold ribbon.

Turgid, roly poly granola bags pre-ribbon

And when I say "we", like I said, I mean my sister, mom, dad, and brother in law.  I am simultaneously proud and embarrassed to say that I did not touch a hot glue gun, and was promptly dismissed from tying bows after my family saw the first mangled product of my labor.

Here are some of the poor but apparently happy fools I suckered into this operation, aka my parents:

Cuties

As for the bags that would hold all this yummy goodness and bows, I purchased these:

Source (in the 8 x 4.75 x 10.25 inch size, Sage color)

Remember the artichoke image I bought from an illustrator?  Well, I was going to milk the $50 licensing fee for all it was worth.  So my sister Gocco'd the artichoke image we had burned for the invitations onto each bag.

So what you can't see it that well--it's an "aura of artichoke" effect

In each bag, we included a welcome note, and on the back had a description of the  contents (notes were lovingly made by none other than my fabulous sister).

And away they went. Um, I lost the photos of the completed bags. Or never took one. Or I don't know.  But I hurt. GAH.

What kind of special touches did you add to the packaging of your OOT bag goodies(if you had them)?

Note: I purchased most of my supplies from Paper Mart.  I had also looked at Nashville Wraps and other sites, but Paper Mart happened to have the products that best suited by needs at good prices.