It's Beautiful jumbo wheel bag-a-lope.

When I came across Lori Craig's bag-a-lope, I looked at it with great interest and noted it for future reference. Sure enough, it came in very handy yesterday when I wanted to package some lovely gingery biscuits I'd made for my friend's birthday.

The bag-a-lope is a gift bag made out of a humble envelope. Click on the link above for Lori's brilliant tutorial. She uses a C4 envelope but I thought that would be too big so I adapted the recipe and used a C5 envelope, cut it off just below the gummed flap and scored 1" in from all the edges. I also decorated the bag with my wonderful jumbo wheel (sigh - totally besotted!) which covered all the bag in seconds. Look:

I made a little tag using the scallop circle punch, layering some left over decorated paper with some plain Old Olive cardstock. The gold elastic thread is great for attaching tags. I liked the way the tag echoed the scalloped top of the bag. Here's a close-up:

The bag is finished by threading ribbon through some holes punched in the top of the bag with a cropadile. This turned out to be a quick and easy way to make a pretty gift bag and it's easy to adapt it to make different sizes. I think it could become a big favourite of mine.

Supplies (all Stampin' Up unless specified):
C5 envelope (from stationer)
Jumbo Wheel: It's Beautiful
Ink: Old Olive jumbo wheel cartridge
Cardstock: Old Olive
Other: Cropadile, Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Gold elastic thread, Scallop circle punch, Scallop border punch

Did I mention how much I adore the jumbo wheel? There are many designs and I want them all to be mine! There's one with little houses on it, one with snowflakes, leaves, swirls... I need them!!!

Happy birthday to all the lovely people who are having birthdays this week!