Crafty Bird: You Really Need a Brand New Bag

...to give away, of course.

Ok, so here's another one of those really great handmade holiday ideas that will fit seamlessly into our celebratory traditions over here. Not only is about making something fabulous, it's green to boot! How about that!

It's the Green Grocery Bag Challenge, which goes something like this:

"The Green Grocery Bag Challenge is a project to encourage sewists to wrap their holiday gifts in reusable cloth grocery bags, thus reducing the amount of wrapping paper entering the waste stream, while simultaneously getting multi-use bags into the hands of consumers (gift recipients)."

{This lovely idea and above description is compliments of Kristin Link at Sew Mama Sew. Merci!}

And just in case you don't know the many good reasons to bring your own reusable bag when you're out and about shopping up a storm at your local retailers:

US consumers generate 4 million tons of wrapping paper and shopping bag waste during the holiday season alone. (Boo on us.)
The US goes through 100 billion single-use plastic grocery bags every year. (Eek. That's a lot.)
Bringing your own bag—and encouraging others to do it too—can make a big difference! (Yay for us!)

So crafty birds, sew (or knit, if you're particularly motivated!) a bag for someone (or everyone!) you love and plan to bestow gifts upon this holiday.

You can use any of these awesome patterns / tutorials, or just wing it!