Halloween Treat Bucket: A Potterybarn inspired tutorial

I LOVE Potterybarn Halloween. They have the cutest fabric treat bags and every year they get better and have a wider variety. Both my boys have personalized treat bags, of course theirs are from Down East Outfitters, a Potterybarn clearance center, and cost me a dollar. I sat there one day & dug through THOUSANDS of treat bags until I found ones with their names on them. The problem is I am about 99% sure they are sitting in storage somewhere in Virginia. I can't find them anywhere and I was so bummed because by the time I discovered this there was NO WAY I would get them in time if I ordered them. Plus Evie needed one of her own and I wanted it to match her Cherub costume

So I decided to make my own & I LOVE it soooo much I made another for both boys AND one for Addie as a thank you for being my model in a previous shoot. The pattern you will need can be found HERE.

What you need:

1/2 yard fabric for main

1/2 yard fabric for lining

1/4 yard batting

Scissors

sewing machine

Felt, ribbon etc for embellishment

When you have cut out all your pieces of fabric for you should have a stack similar to this:

Plus your handle strip

Taking your pile of panel pieces (say that 10 times fast!) one by one you are going to connect them to each other. Take 2 pieces and place them right sides together lining up the edges.

Sew along the edge. Now open it up and repeat the process until you have a line of panels:

Now fold it in half so that right sides are together and pin.

Sew along the edge connecting the last two pieces together and making s circle.

Now take your bottom circle and pin it right sides together all the way around the bottom. {You may need to pleat a little to make it match perfectly}

Now flip the whole thing right sides out

Now you are going to repeat the exact same process for your bag lining. You should now have two unlined, sort of bags :) At this point I embellished the front with some felt and rhinstones. It just lays a little flatter and makes it easier to work with but you can do it at the end if you like. Take your batting and cut a strip as wide and as long as your bag.

{Mine was 19 X 9}

Sew the ends of the batting together to make a circle. Slide your circle up over the WRONG side of your lining portion and pin just below the top.

Now sew along the top edge connecting your batting to the lining. Now it is time to make our handle. You can use whatever you liked for a handle. I used gold cording on Evie's bag:

and on the boy's I used white ribbon:

For Addie's I wanted it to be green so I needed to make one. I took my long strip of fabric and headed to the ironing board. Fold over and iron both raw edges all the way along. Then fold the entire thing in half lengthwise and iron. Usually I use this technique for home made binding but today we will sew along the open edge and create a handle.

Once you have it sewed shut you are going to pin it to either side of your bag.

I also wanted a ruffle around the top so I made one and attached it all the way around the top edge making use right sides were together.

Now, take your lining piece and turn it inside out. Slide this up over your main piece with is right sides out. This should make them right sides together.

Now sew around the top edge leaving an unsewn space so that you can flip it all out. Once you have sewn around turn the bag right side out. Make sure before you do this to remove ALL PINS. Now topstitch what you just sewed sewing shut the opening in the process.

I wanted to personalize hers but did not have enough corresponding felt to cut out letters so I turned to glittery paint.

Once I made Addie's the requests from the boys came flooding in. Sawyer wanted a skeleton, Finn a ghost and Evie, well Evie just wanted a bag:

I was really excited about Evie's costume.

I originally wanted her to be cupid but my main goal was to use everything local to make it. I couldn't figure out how to make a cute bow and arrow with out gold spray paint thus she became a cherub. Oh and her shoes are from Target... everything else though ha!

I stuffed the treat bags with grocery bags and then hide a few treats on top hoping that would be a good enough bribe..

Once Finn saw his bag he no longer wanted to be spiderman (which we ordered MONTHS ago) but a ghost, which took me all of two seconds to make. He was so cute and just kept saying trick or treat!!! over and over. My hubby kept asking him to smile bigger and he would so try it was HILARIOUS. Sawyer is dying for a skeleton costume now, not Optimus Prime but that takes longer then 2 seconds ha!

What is so funny is here we were on the beach at 7:15am in full get up and I totally forgot to get one of all 3 of them together. Oh well, there is always actual Halloween right? Hope you make a fun treat bag!

Cheers,

Kelly