My out of town guest bags....

The big day is rapidly approaching and my out of town guest bags are complete. (We are going on  a cruise so everyone is an out of town guest)

They were a labor of love but they turned out really well. They are loaded and overstuffed. We have to have a friend drive them down to the port as our luggage and the bags won't fit into my SUV without smushing them!


So here are the masterpieces...

The bag is a woven raffia/ paper. It is really light weight and has two open pockets on the front. It zips across the top. The logo was from a graphic designer on Etsy. It was transferred onto the bags. I attached a laminated personalized luggage tag with a ribbon. 

I loaded the bags to the gills with all of this swag...

 The swag included an organza bag full of gourmet-ish, beach friendly snacks.  In my opinion, organza bags always make things (even Swedish fish) seem fancier. These are jumbo sized and I purchased them on ebay from a seller who only sells organza bags. Who knew that was a viable business model?

Here are the contents of the snack bag, which includes Pirate's Booty, any type of fish candy that I could source and my chocolate cruise ships which were a total pain in my bootie.

Here is a little pencil case which I thought would be helpful to throw in a beach bag. It is not waterproof but heavy duty and water resistant.

 Inside, there is a mesh bag which is perfect for toting back sandy or wet stuff from the beach and to take laundry home from the cruise. There is also sunscreen, spf lip balm and a fab hair tie in it.

One of my favorite parts about cruising is that it is far too expensive to text or use cell phones. This means, we will back to old fashioned writing to tell each other where we are. The note on top of this cute memo board says "Leave a note so your cabin mate knows where you are... (Unless you don't want to be found)". It has an attached marker and eraser and a ribbon holder.

I sourced giant scarves/sarongs at a boutique.   These are the perfect weight for summer and can be worn as scarfs, shawls, dresses or skirts. I included a little paper which shows ways to tie it. I threw in an organza bag so it is like a little sarong kit! I got several different colors/patterns so we won't all look like twins.

I found these cute rubber horns which are ipod/iphone speakers. Great for tunes in the cabin or by the pool!

I also bought beaded bracelets and clutches at the merchandise mart. The bracelets are all different and the clutches are different colors. These were the least colorful in the bunch but much prettier in person.

I added personalized t-shirts and baseball hats for the men and kids. I have extra in case any of the ladies really want them. I know this crowd and they probably don't. Hint: The prices for personalized t-shirts and hats were all over the place. I checked online and at a bunch of local places. The place that I ended up using is a pretty big local business that  specializes in personalized  t-shirts. They use good quality and offered a small discount if we paid in cash. If you need to print up swag in the future, I would suggest really shopping around. Some of the places that I got quotes from were more than double.

I also have my amenity kits

I've included the contents of the kits underneath this post.

I also included the cute personal note from the guest of honor.

The gift bags  are all sealed in huge clear gift basket bags and ready to go. The kids get different bags. I will try to post about those tomorrow

Appendix: Contents of amenity kit.