A pretty and practical personalized gift

 

 Here's a fun and easy project that you can make now for gifts.  I love Shutterfly and very frequently choose their personalized photo items as gifts.  I think I've made 80-plus projects using Shutterfly over the years, and have always been quite pleased with the results.

However, the projects I'm sharing here today are some that I made for me!  They are a great way to preserve some special memories.  The bag at top is considered a reusable grocery bag.  You can see many of the various designs available here: Shutterfly reusable grocery bags.  Below are a couple more I have made:

 

These bags are great.  They hold up well; they're made of polyester and will hold up to 50 pounds, plus they are machine washable.  They are so handy.  I don't think I have ever used mine for groceries, but they are great for carrying needlework, beach gear, books, or anything else that one might wish to tote.   

All three of my bags feature photos from summer 2015, the last time our western daughter and her hubby got out here with their whole family.  Those are such beautiful memories and I love having them at my fingertips.  

I've also made some of Shutterfly's cotton tote bags, which seem to no longer be available.  So I include the following photo of one of my bags, just to give you another idea (the photo on this bag is of Nevada's Lamoille Canyon):

They do have canvas tote bags, which are not at all the same.  These cotton drawstring bags are closer.

 

I think that these bags would make really great gifts.  Once you order from Shutterfly you will find that you frequently receive some great offers for free products.  I seldom pay full price for anything I get from them.  The quality of these bags is great and the possibilities for personalization nearly endless.

 

As an aside to this post, I'll mention again that since this is my 10th year of doing Christmas in July,  I thought it would be fun to do a bit of a give*away each week.  

As many readers know, I have loads of vintage Christmas ephemera. 

I've been putting together some small assortments of paper treasures and am giving away one of them to a blog reader each week of July.  So for this week, if you are interested leave the word "gold" somewhere in your comment on this post.  Drawing for the prize will be on Friday July 30 and I'll announce the winner on Saturday the 31st.