Yesterday, I listed some tie-dye muslin bags on my Etsy shop, some pink and some blue, and I couldn’t help but get a little nostalgic over these guys. I used to sell them when I sold my jewelry at art shows many years ago, back in the early 1990s. The whole “new age” trend was pretty hot then, and since I specialized mainly in gemstone jewelry, these were a good fit.

I called them “Power Bags,” and after tie-dying them, I would put a few tumbled stones inside each one (normally rose quartz, clear quartz, and amethyst which were the more popular stones in my jewelry as well) and attach a hang card with stone folklore written on it. I sold them for about $3 each, and they were actually pretty hot sellers. I dyed the bags in batches, so they didn’t take that long to make. I also purchased the tumbled stones in bulk, usually at a large rock or jewelry show, and I used my computer to print up the cards and tied them onto the drawstring part of the bags.

Of course, the new age trend may be a little dated these days, but if you are looking for an item to sell along with your jewelry, these make nice impulse type purchases and are good for the non-jewelry folks out there. But, since they include gemstones, they still can have a connection to your jewelry.

I don’t remember where I used to get the muslin bags from, but I’m sure if you google you could find lots of wholesale places to purchase them. I dyed them using some sort of dyed string product that I don’t even know exists any more, but doing a quick on-line search I found some good general instructions for tie-dye at About.com’s Family Craft site.

Of course, if you aren’t into the hippy vibe these bags give off, you could leave them a la natural or consider other methods for altering them such as rubber stamps and fabric paint.