Recycled Tee-Shirt into a Backpack

He has it filled with little cars, so it is pretty heavy and hanging low...I have since shorted the straps so the bag sits up higher on his shoulders.



I have also discovered that the material I used for the straps is freing, so I think I will replace them with tee-shirt material straps like the original directions called for, I will have to use a different tee-shirt since the kids ones are to small to cut extra material off to make the straps...Dada must have an old tee we can use!



 I have been wanting to make the boys "Nature Bags" that we can take with us while out exploring..well..nature! The idea is for them to each have a bag with supplies that they can carry them selves. Here is what I want to put into the bags:

snack

hat

colored pencils

small notepad

sm. magnify glass

bug jar

compass

sm. flashlight

I thought it would be fun to make their bags from their old tee shirts! I found the instructions here...

How-to-make-a-drawstring-backpack-out-of-a-t-shirt

I modified these instructions a bit, cause kids tee-shirts are a lot smaller.  I could not cut the bottom off the kids shirts to make the straps, so I used some green fabric I had and made the straps.

First I cut the arms and neck off.

I cut 8 green strips into 2x13 in strips, then sewed them to make two strips 52 inch strips.

I folded them in and sewed down the middle to make the straps strong so they would not stretch when heavy things (like rocks) are in the bag.

Next I folded down the top about 1 inch and sewed across (front and back)

I took the straps and fed them thru the top so there was a loop and 2 ends at each side.

(you cant see the loop in the picture, but when you pull the ends it pulls the material together as a draw string)

I actually used a strait pin to pin the end to the eraser of a pencil to feed the material thru!

Bring the straps down thru the inside to the bottom

(shirt is inside out)

While inside out pin the bottom of the straps and the bottom of the shirt and sew across, when you turn it right side out it will look like this!

Picture of the front!