How to Customize a Canvas Tote Bag

I’ve had this blank tote bag sitting around the house for about 2 years now with the intention to put some type of design on it. Honestly I think the only reason we’ve kept this tote is because of Colorado law having stores charge for plastic bags. Originally I wanted to do something for our canna brand but could never think of a good enough idea. It wasn’t until recently that when I finished revising the Coffee & Comics logo that I was like, “Oh, this would be perfect.” All I really needed to do was create a jpeg with the logo to use with the projector. My projector was a cheap $40 projector from Amazon that I knew would work for this project. My plan was to lightly trace the logo on the wall with a chalk pencil, then take the bag down and fill it in with the marker on a table. Should be easy enough right?

The materials I used but not necessarily needed: old ass fabric markers that I bought a year ago and one of them was completely dried out, a black chalk pencil for outlining, a projector, push pins, tape, cardboard and a ruler.

I started off with trying to figure out how big I wanted the logo to be on the bag. On the computer I put a big and small logo on my artboard so I’d have two options to work with when lining it up on the bag. After I figured that out, I got some tape and placed it from left to right so I could line up the logo with the projector. Once you’re done with that you can place the bag or whatever you’re wanting to trace on up on the wall. What is important in this step is to make sure you can get the bag to lay flat against the wall while you pin it into place. A canvas tote bag is a bit stiff so getting any wrinkles and bumps prior to tracing is highly beneficial. Lining up the projector and focusing the image on the bag is probably the most difficult part. I propped my projector up on an extra tripod so I could place my image higher up on the wall and stand while I trace the logo instead of being crouched or bent over trying to do it low to the ground. 

Now comes the easy or fun part, tracing! Take your chalk pencil and start to outline the logo without pressing too hard on the bag. The benefit of using chalk is that the marker will cover it up but also is easier to remove in case you mess up. On this logo I wanted to make sure the superhero eyes and the coffee cup details don’t get lost with the marker bleeding past the edges, so be extra careful and give your outline a little bit of extra room for the marker. I set up my camera and took a few videos of me doing this, you can find it on my TikTok here. Be aware of where you are walking so as to not to knock over or move the projector once you’ve started or else it will be a pain in the butt to try and line it up again. 

Afterward once you are done outlining it chalk you can take it down and start filling in the logo with your marker or ink. So my markers are about a year or maybe even two years old, but I think this helped in my case as I didn’t have to worry about the marker bleeding. Take a piece of cardboard and stick it in the bag in case the markers bleed through the material and you don’t stain the opposite side. You don’t have to do this extra step but I used some spray glue on the cardboard to adhere to the back of the bag so it wouldn’t move around while filling in with the marker. If you have extra material I would recommend testing out your marker before you start on the final product. Depending on how wet your markers are, this will either be a long or short process. I had to go over the bag a few times to fill in all the little spaces of the material of the bag. In the end it came out better than I expected. This was just a practice run to see if I want to make a few of these to sell on my website. Not sure if I should use anything to “seal” it but if I find anything I will come back and update this post.

Next time I’m going to try different markers and maybe even try fabric paint instead. 

Need a quick run through? See below!

How to trace a design on a tote bag:

1. Create jpeg with logo to transfer onto projector

2. Tape a line across bag or whatever you’re using so you can line up logo

3. Hang bag on the wall with push pins, try to lay flat

4. Line up logo with projector on the bag

5. Trace with chalk pencil, careful on details

6. Remove from wall and place cardboard behind material

7. Fill in with marker

8. Stand back and admire your work