Paper bag safari vest tutorial

My Little guy will be turning 2 in February and I have planned an awesome 2 wild safari party.  So I thought it would be cute if his little guests had little safari vests to wear.  I found this idea on pinterest of course but every tutorial I found skipped way too many steps.  After trying several different methods, I decided to do it my way AND make an awesome tutorial of course!

Step 1:  Gather some paper pages and cut the handles off.  We don't need these for anything so go ahead and discard them.  My hubby found them useful for adding to the fire he was starting. :)

Step 2: Find the side with the seam up the middle and lay it flat.  Use the seam as the guide to help you sketch a tank top onto the bag.  I made these V-neck vest but it's entirely up to you, if you prefer scoop necked vest.  Just make it work! (Yes, I'm also a Project runway fanatic!)

Step 3:  Cut up the seam all the way to your neck line. And keep going along your sketch.

step 4:  At this point through several trial and error methods, I found that opening up the top and cutting straight across was the best method.  When you get to the back of your vest, round out a half circle.

Step 5: At this point the back of your vest should look something like this:

and the front looks like this:

Step 6:  Now for the side of your vest.  Go back to where you sketched the arm holes.  This part got a little tricky.  Snip a little notch where your line starts on the bottom.  Slip your scissors into it and follow your sketch up the front, across the bottom of the bag (Now your shoulder area, and around the size until you reach back to where you started.  Initially I tried to cut through both layers in one cut but it looked sloppy and odd shaped.  It really is worth the extra effort to cut all the way around.  And it gives you a better scrap to work with for the pockets.

 Step 7: Turn your vest inside out.  I glued down the flaps on the shoulder from what used to be the bottom 

of  the bag.

Step 8:  Take some of your scraps and use them to make faux pockets.  I just cut I thick strip with one rounded side and folded it into thirds.  Then I used a brad to secure it shut.

I made 2 pockets per vest.  This is what they looked like On the left is the back view and the right is the front.

Then I glued them into place on the vest front.  They are exactly what I had hoped they would look like.  I can't wait to see our guests in them!  I'm just hoping it doesn't rain on our safari!

I displayed them on a table along with a basket filled with TP roll binoculars!