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8 Styling Ideas for Beach Tote Bags

Priscilla Greene |

Summer is coming. Maybe not soon enough, but it will be here and we all need to get ready for those amazing beach days we so dream of. You can get ready either for an exotic seaside vacation or for a hot bachelorette party with your girls on the beach – it does not matter. All that matters is to start looking for some amazing beach tote bags you can match to your beach attire or you can style up to stand out from the crowd.

If you think about making personalized summer gifts as well, you have come to the right place, as we have 8 easy and fun styling ideas for beach tote bags. As long as you remember that excursions and beach days require large tote bags, you should have no other worries. Let’s get creative then, shall we?

1. Ride the Seahorse

ToteBagFactory Printing Beach Bags

Nothing evokes the cool tingling of the sea caressing your feet, the wind through your hair, the marine scent filling out your lungs, or the sun kissing your skin like a seahorse. Cute, whimsical, summery, and lighthearted, seahorse prints can turn a plain white beach tote bag into a work of art.

Make sure the print colors will not fade in contact with water and sun or due to long exposure to heat. Color printing canvas is an easy and affordable process, so you can make more than just one tote bag. If you plan a trip out with the girls, get such inexpensive beach bags in bulk and print them as holiday’s gifts for them.

Instead of using linen canvas bags to apply underwater pressure, our recommendation as Tote Bag Factory is to opt for a polyester-blend cotton tote bag. This fabric type has the ability to hold various types of paints such as felt-tip markers, finger paints, acrylic paints, etc., for an extended period. Thus, it easily withstands prolonged contact with water without smudging.

2. Slow-Paced Turtle Fun

Beach Bags ToteBagFactory

If you feel your creative juices flowing and the upcoming summer filling you up with energy, then you may consider a quick and easy DIY project. A solid tote bag is perfect for the beach. Large, sturdy, and resilient to the elements, it makes a great addition to your wardrobe.

Creating your own sewing bag provides a space where you can unleash your creativity and allows you to repurpose waste materials. To do this, start by cutting a flat, square, or rectangular piece of fabric from an unused t-shirt or shirt. This single piece will form the large outer surface of your bag. Two equal pieces cut from the short edges will add additional volume to the side edges. You can apply a sewing style as shown in the visual, or create your own design and embellish it with a cute turtle made from a different fabric.

However, if you want to unleash your love for summer and everything marine, take your time and collect scraps of cloth. Then sew them on the bag to make a nice turtle companion for your beach days. You can also stylize the bag’s handles to make it a ruffle bag with an attitude.

3. You are the Style of Your Bag

Canvas Beach Bag Tote Bag Factory

If it sounds a bit odd, hear us out. Instead of styling the beach bag tote to match your beach outfits, personal style, and attitude, why don’t you choose a bag that goes with everything?

A bag like this, suitable for your daily activities and usable in every setting, will also be a lifesaver in your wardrobe. Typically designed in a simple, single color, and large size to accommodate your belongings, these bags stand out with their easy-to-clean features. In our Tote Bag Factory catalog, polyester beach tote bags are the ideal choices for this purpose.

The only thing a polyester black solid beach bag needs is to accompany your superb summer dress to any beach party with your stylish friends. The advantage of such amazing large tote bags is that they work miracles with your mid-day swim suit or beach dress, while they style up a casual or a hip outfit for a summer’s night party.

4. Painters Have Nothing on You

Custom Beach Tote Bag ToteBagFactory

If arts and crafts are your thing, then go wild for your own beach bag or for your friends’ ones! Pick heavy cotton two-tone beach bags (a combination of white and deep marine blue will help) and use dip dye color detailing to turn them into veritable works of art!

The canvas bags we recommend for this purpose are obtained from natural fabric and, due to their inherent structure, provide a beautiful blank space that you can enhance by adding patterns through printing or hand-painting. To achieve this, you can procure fabric paint and create wavy patterns, adding a modern design to your bag as illustrated in the visuals.

Make sure the color will not fade in the sun or wash away in contact with water, otherwise you can be as expressionist or impressionist as you want. One of the biggest advantages of these beach tote bags is their versatility: go grocery shopping early in the morning to the local farmer’s market in your beach village, then pick up your bathing suit and hit those waves!

5. Send a message on a… bag

Such personalized beach tote bag work amazing with a written label, message, or statement, especially when you and your ladies go on vacation together. They also make exceptional bridesmaids apparel if you girls are ready to party.

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The most significant feature of canvas tote bags—and the reason they are one of the most preferred types of bags—is their ability to be personalized. By this, we not only mean their suitability for printing. Canvas bags can also be redesigned with additional accessories such as extra pockets, brooches, pins, or compartments. Additionally, you can decorate the bag handles with materials like ribbons or linen strips.

As we said above, totebags are extremely versatile and useful. You can clean them a little after the beach session and take them out as trendy casual bags for shopping or a night out.

6. Flower Power

ToteBagFactory Flower Beach Bag

If you carry a lot when you go to the beach for a day (and especially for a week’s long trip), an oversized jumbo twill cotton beach tote bag will be there for you to assist.

You can decorate your handmade fabric bag as you wish using fabric obtained from another unused garment. Of course, having some knowledge of sewing techniques will be beneficial, especially for a floral design as shown in the visual. However, before that, you must make a wise choice in fabric. Thick fabrics like linen may be ideal for printing, but they can be challenging for detailed needlework. Therefore, try working with soft-textured fabrics.

Pick a bundle and style them up with yo-yo flowers applications. All you need are some cloth scrapes, some buttons, and your sewing skills. You can make one for each of your friends, for your lovely and beach-loving female family members, for your daughter, and so on.

7. Swim Like a Fish

Cotton Beach Bags Tote Bag Factory

If you love the seaside as fish love the sea, then this style is the right one for you. Pick large poly zippered tote bags in vibrant colors  (an electric shade of blue might be perfect) and start your creative project by applying buttons and scraps of cloth to create a marine landscape.

If you love Nemo or Dori, you can go wild and pick the exact colors to recreate the marine life you felt so in love with a few years back. It matters less the actual design as long as you have fun with your creative endeavors.

8. Bling in the Fun

Hobo style felt beach tote bags are all the rage right now: they look like baskets with more class and they look like purses with a less pretentious flair. In other words, they are perfect for bridesmaids, beach parties with your girls, and a full seaside vacation in a foreign exotic country, and so on.

The most notable feature of felt hobo bags, which bring these two elements together, is their ease of customization and decoration. Bags designed for this purpose typically use 100% polyester fabric, ensuring both lightweight and suitability for processes such as printing and stitching. As part of the Tote Bag Factory family, we recommend designing your felt hobo bag with touches like stitching and button or stud additions rather than relying solely on print for decoration.

One of the biggest advantages of hobo felt beach bags is that you can style them up any way you want. For this entry, we love keychain charms or keychain colored pom-poms attached to the handles. They add color, texture, a bit of necessary beach bling, sound, and entertainment.

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Wrapping Things Up

What other ideas do you have when you style your beach bags? Do you prefer your large tote bags with their raw colors and designs? Are you the type that always spices things up and uses tote bags as the perfect canvas for creativity?