Make a Children’s Apron from a Reusable Shopping Bag

This is a simple project to make a children’s apron from a reusable shopping bag. Depending on the bag you use, you can make aprons with different materials. Cotton bags for kitchen aprons, or woven polyester bags for waterproof art & crafts aprons.

My daughter’s been doing more and more arts & crafts lately. While I love her interest and enthusiasm, things can get pretty messy. Spilled paint, markers, glue. Accidents happen right?

I decided to try to make an apron for her to wear. While looking for fabric, I quickly realized that I could use a reusable shopping bag. Not only is it about the right size, the handles can be used as-is for the strap around the neck.

I added lots of pockets into the apron to hold brushes, scissors, and other tools.

How to make an apron from a reusable grocery bag:

Choose a bag with the material you want to make the apron with. For this project, I used a cotton bag that measured about 40 cm high x 36 cm wide.

Cut the sides of the bag open. One handle will be become the neck strap. Cut out the corners for the arms.

Cut off the bottom handle and save for later. Fold and sew the bottom edge.

Fold the bottom 3 times. This creates 2 layers of pockets at the bottom of the apron.

Sew the folds together at the edges. Then fold and sew the remaining edges to finish the edge.

Now it’s time to sew the narrow pockets for pencils and brushes. Take the top two layers of the bottom pocket and sew about 1 inch apart.

Flip the pockets inside out so the unfinished edge is on inside.

Cut the handle saved from the first step in half and sew to each side for the waist strap.

There you go! One reusable shopping bag children’s apron with lots of pockets to hold all the art & crafts tools a child needs.