Canvas tote bags are quite available in plain. Besides different color choices, plain tote bags are normally available in different sizes and fabric choices for various daily usage: carrying a laptop and working documents during a working commute, holding your books and study materials when you go to the library, putting your belongings when you to the beach, carrying your harvest when you go shopping. Even you can take all your accessories when you go to yoga or gym, on condition that you choose a proper size of tote. A canvas tote bag might be the best choice when you go out lightly.
Besides color, size, and fabric variety, is there anything we can do to match the needs of creativity, stylish and personalization?

The answer is quite positive as one of the advantages of a plain canvas tote bag is it is plain thus very open to inviting exotic accessories and patterns to put on. Here are some hints to make the tote bag your own design, not changing your practicability of the tote bags. Do it yourself and make tote bags your own design!

1. Letter Printing

In this time of personality, to express oneself is quite important, and a bag which is carried at a quite outstanding place in such a big size gives us plenty of space to speak of who we are and what we love.
A plain tote bag is kind of like a plain T-shirt which expresses yourself in a silent way. Here are some picks for your letter printing:

• It can be a single letter which is special for you. For example, C for cycling, E for Ecobagreen.
• A motivational message. It looks cool
• Your quote of poem
• Your favorite lyrics from movie
• Even you can put the quote from your lecture to remind your favorite class

When you create your own printing canvas tote, it is better to choose the color of the letter in contrast with the base cloth, so that it makes the words outstanding and expresses your attitude better. For example, if the base cloth of the canvas bag is white, it is suggested to use black, dark blue, red, or dark green to make the letters. Make sure you find a qualified manufacturer to make your design into a real tote bag. They may ensure the printing comes out with quality: beautiful color, clean print, qualified colorfastness, or also called color resistance, which means the color is not that easy to fade away after washing or even abrasion. ( we put an appendix at the bottom of this essay also to give you some reference of color fastness for better understanding.)

2. Plant Printing

This is also called made-in-nature printing, using nothing but natural things. Simple steps of creating your own made in a nature tote bag:

• Collect the leaves and flower you like as much as you can.
• Put the plants on the bag surface.
• Strike on the plant to make the natural color of the plant being transferred to the fabric of the tote bag.

There are also some materials you may use to make the color fastness higher during the process of printing like alum, acetic acid, and rust water. However, if you are an environmental advocate, we would suggest using the plant itself, even if the color fastness is not that high.
Isn’t it a kind of life journey having the color faded while using the bag which is hand made by oneself?

3. Punch Needles to Make Simple Line Drawings on The Tote

Who says that needle punching is an ancient art only？ when your needle punching pattern is simple line drawings, the bag together with the needle punching is modern and cool. Try to change different yarns in different colors and thicknesses, which will make your design into different styles.

Yarn choices suggestions: wool yarn, ribbon, and linen yarn.

• Wool yarn is fluffy, thus it can make the patterns sticking out
• Ribbons are with satin gloss hence good for holiday scene patterns
• Linen yarn, which is similar to wool, but it is stiffer and lack in color thus it is quite suitable for natural looking tote bags.

4. Zipper Sometimes Create Vivid Pattern on Your Tote Bag

The above picture is for example of how to use a zipper on your tote bag. It can also be a geometry pattern, which is cool and modern, instead of a cartoon pattern.

5. Embroidery

Embroidery needles with fine yarn cross over the fabric of the bag and the patterns you want will be fixed on your bag: it can be your name, your quote, your favorite cartoon character. Ecobagreen offers embroidery techniques to make your bag special.

6. Small Accessories Change the Tote Bag Style

If printing, sewing, and playing with the plant is not that easy for you, here are some ways which you might like:

• Tassels and pendants: put tassels or pendants on the handle of the bag.

You can have different colors to express your mood: pink for a romantic day, blue for the sad mood, and green for having an eco-friendly moment…and pendants can express more as they are in different designs or even characters.

• PIN:

PIN collection of the coffee PIN or even PIN from your study can be a decoration of your tote bag now.
Also, you may combine pendants with pins.

Appendix for colorfastness: When talking about color resistance, there is some information you may refer to as below, The so-called color fastness (also being referred to as color resistance) refers to the fading degree of dyed fabrics under the action of external factors (extrusion, friction, washing, rain, exposure, light, seawater immersion, saliva immersion, water stains, sweat stains, etc.) in the process of use or processing.

It is an important index of fabrics. Because the conditions and requirements of fabrics in the process of processing and use are very different, most of the current test methods are simulated or comprehensive tests according to the active environment and conditions, so the test methods of colorfastness are quite extensive. But throughout the international standards organization (ISO), the American Association of colorists and Chemists (AATCC ), Japan (JIS ), the United Kingdom (BS), and many other standards, the most commonly used ones are washing resistance, light resistance, friction resistance, and sweat resistance, ironing resistance, climate resistance, etc. in practical work, the test items are mainly determined according to the end-use of the product and product standards. For example, the wool textile product standard stipulates that the colorfastness to sunlight must be tested, of course, the knitted underwear should be tested for sweat fastness, while outdoor textiles (such as sunshade, lightbox cloth, and canopy materials) course, its colorfastness to climate shall be tested. Canvas tote bag is made of daily use textile, which normally, we consider washing resistance. However, we have to emphasize that some special printing technique naturally brings low washing resistance so that the bag is not suggested to be washed but only wipe with a wet cloth.