Decorate a tote bag with POSCA pens

Want to get rid of plastic bags in favour of something more sustainable? Well why not plump for a fabric sack that you can customise? Here we show you how to update and decorate a plain tote bag with POSCA pens.

This easy craft project will encourage you to ditch the plastic bags and carry your groceries in a fabric tote you can use again and again.

We’ve used a super simple shapes to create oranges and lemons for a fruit themed tote. We show how blending your POSCA paint markers will create depth for your illustration. We also illustrate how, once dry, you can use POSCA pens to overlay detail on your shapes to add life to your illustration.

POSCA pens work brilliantly on a range of surfaces including paper, card, glass, ceramic, fabric, wood and plastic. This makes them the go-to pen for up-cycling, personalising clothes, creating decorations or designing a greeting. All you need is a plain tote, a plain piece of paper, a PIN pen and some POSCA pens in white, orange, yellow, brown and dark and light green.

Step 1: Make your design

Set up your shapes

Make a simple template for your customised tote bag. Use your PIN pen to draw circles, two large for the oranges and two smaller discs for the lemons. Then add two ‘bumps’ on the top and bottom of the smaller circles to make the lemon shape. Then make simple leaf and stem shapes.

Step 2: Trace your template

 Use a template

Place your template inside your tote bag. Trace over with your Orange and yellow POSCA paint markers onto the fabric as shown.

 Trace the template

Step 3: Fill-in your shapes

 Blend, colour, add leaves

Have fun with blending and shaping your fruit designs with your POSCA pens. You can blend yellow and green POSCAs to add depth to your lemon design. Use yellow and orange to crate a full, rounded orange fruit.  Follow your template to create lemon stem and leaf designs. Allow the shapes to dry.

Step 4: Overlay leaves and detail

Blend, colour, add more leaves

Once the main components are dry, you can overlay detail onto your tote bag design. Use white and brown POSCA pens to draw lines for added definition and dots for texture on your fruit shapes. Draw in an orange stem with the brown POSCA and light green for leaves. Now use light green POSCA to add veins and highlights to the dark green lemon leaves and dark green POSCA to do the same on the light green orange leaves.

You’ve now finished, but you can always repeat this process to cover the tote in oranges and lemons.

Watch the video!

We made a short video on how to decorate your tote. See how we did it below….

More ideas

Once you’ve decorated one tote bag you won’t want to stop. We’ve made a lemon themed tote, a llama shopper and a cheeky squirrel illustrated bag with our POSCA paint markers, check them out below. . .

Alt idea Decorate a tote with POSCA with simple lemon design

Alt idea Decorate a tote with POSCA with a llama and cactus design

Update a plaint tote bag with a little help from your POSCA 60 pen pack