5 Things to Look for in a Quality Custom Monogram Bag

Custom monogram bags are fashionable, functional items. They provide a means of carrying your belongings while keeping you in style. Custom monogram totes give you a blank canvas on which to express your unique personality. They also make a thoughtful gift for friends and family.

When buying a custom monogram bag, it is important to consider the factors that set it apart as a quality choice. Consider these five features to look for in a quality custom monogram bag, and find out why Threadwell&#;s personalized tote bags meet your needs.

Durability
Quality custom tote bags have a high durability factor. They are made of materials that make them resistant to damage, wear and tear, and abrasion.

Canvas is the most common textile choice for tote bags. Canvas is made of plain-woven cotton, linen, and synthetic fibers. These synthetic fibers are interwoven with heavy cotton threads, creating an extremely durable fabric. Canvas&#; reputation for durability makes it a popular choice for sails, shoes, bags, paintings, and furniture coverings.

When you choose a tote bag, pick one made of a durable material like canvas. Tote bags made of canvas are sturdy yet pliable. They hold their shape and carry heavier items like water bottles, lunch containers, makeup, or food without sagging or ripping.

Threadwell&#;s Canvas Carry All is the perfect classic tote bag. It&#;s stylish, functional, and durable, and made of 18 oz. canvas. This blank cream-colored tote is the perfect space on which to add a colorful embroidered monogram.

Craftsmanship
The mark of a quality monogram tote bag is in the bag&#;s craftsmanship. Craftsmanship extends from the bag itself to the embroidery on the outside. If the bag has a zippered closure, check if all the teeth align and if the manufacturer has used double stitching as reinforcement. Choose a bag with a tightly woven canvas that holds its shape and is free from frays, tears, or other indicators of poor quality.

Along with tote construction, assess the bag&#;s embroidery craftsmanship. Look at the seller&#;s featured items to get a sense of their embroidery expertise. Read about their company to understand their experience and approach to customization and embroidery.

Quality companies, like Threadwell, share their passion for embroidery and design and provide plenty of examples of their superior embroidery skills for you to look at before deciding on your personalized items.

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Functionality
A quality tote bag serves a functional purpose in addition to looking stylish. A quality tote bag can be used for many purposes, including:

• Carrying wine or spirits to an adult gathering
• Carting school or craft supplies
• Transporting gym or sports clothing
• Bringing food and drink to a picnic or luncheon
• Serving as a travel bag for weekend trips
• Conveying belongings on a camping trip
• Storing makeup, pencils, fingernail polish, or other small items
• Keeping books or papers safe from the weather
• Hauling towels, swimsuits, and sunscreen to the beach

The weather-proof Rain Tote is a quality example of a functional, stylish tote bag. It is made of truck tarp material to keep the rain off your belongings and provides a colorful space for a personalized vinyl pressing.

The Avery Jumbo Tote is perfect for hauling any number of items whenever they need to go. Made of thick canvas material, this bag is treated to be stain-resistant and antimicrobial. It also features a reinforced bottom that helps to keep your books, food, clothes, or makeup organized.

Special Features
Quality tote bags include special features that make the bag easy to pack up and hassle-free to use. Many totes offer plenty of storage space for your important items. Cheap totes might look cute and serve their purpose, but high-quality bags anticipate your needs with multiple pockets, reinforced bottoms and sides, and adjustable or removable straps you can alter as needed.

The Advantage Tote is designed with storage in mind. The leather handles make it easy to grab and go, and the two inside pockets give you a place to secure smaller items within the larger open space in the middle.

The camo Camp Tote highlights convenience with its D-rings that allow you to add removable, adjustable straps. The Insulated Carry All provides a convenient insulation feature that helps keep your food items fresh throughout the day. Just put an ice pack inside the silver insulated lining, and your food will stay cold for hours.

Style
The quality monogram tote you choose should provide you with plenty of style - both in the embroidery or vinyl pressing options and the bag design itself. Threadwell provides more than ten different tote designs with varying sizes, so you can find exactly what you&#;re looking for.

Choose from Canvas Carry All, Avery Totes, Advantage Totes, overnight duffle bags, canvas pouches, over-the-shoulder purses, camping totes, Seersucker tote bags, and backpacks. No matter what your taste, there is a tote bag option for you.

In addition to bag styles, Threadwell offers a wide array of personalization options. For embroidered personalization, choose from multiple:

• Monogram styles like Round Bay, Circle Script, and Bookman
• Typestyles and fonts
• Thread colors

For custom vinyl pressings for your tote bag, you also have the option to choose from a variety of monogram styles, typestyles and fonts, and vibrant vinyl colors.

Order Your Custom Monogram Bag From Threadwell
Threadwell offers quality custom monogram totes of every style and size. Our personalized tote bags are durable, functional, and stylish. They provide ample storage space, and most importantly, they showcase the impressive craftsmanship of Threadwell&#;s embroidery team.

Contact Threadwell today about your custom monogram tote order. We are happy to create a design of your choice or help you find the perfect monogram style and color for your personalized tote bag.

The best custom product for promoting your brand won't always be apparel. In some cases, it might make more sense to go with something like a tote bag.

Consider this: lots of companies give away free pens and mugs. While t-shirts are great (and can turn customers into walking billboards), they're sometimes a dime a dozen -- and may not always fit the recipient. However, when's the last time you were given a tote bag?

The advantages of customized tote bags

 

 

 

Custom tote bags are a great promotional item because they're both a bit less common and very functional. In fact, if you were given a tote bag at a convention, you'd likely use it to haul all of those free pens and mugs.

You also don't have to worry about whether a tote bag will "fit" the recipient -- because a tote bag isn't worn. Anybody who receives one should be able to use it.

 

Custom tote bags are practical

 

 

 

Who doesn't need a bag? If you get a tote bag at an event, odds are you'll use it almost right away. In fact, there's a chance it might come loaded with gifts.

However, no matter how a tote is used when you first get it, there are plenty of uses afterward -- even if you're just using it for groceries. For the most part, a tote bag will be more durable than the bags provided by shops.

 

Personalized tote bags are seen as a premium item

 

 

 

How many custom pens have you been given over the years? How quickly have you lost most of them?

While a custom pen is a practical item, people usually don't value them. That's why you'll see a mix of company pens sitting in a jar at a counter -- somebody is given one, they use it a few times, and then they leave it behind somewhere.

Custom mugs don't have much better luck. Most of the time, they get shoved to the back of a cupboard where they aren't seen until it's time for spring cleaning and they find their way to a Goodwill or Savers.

Unlike those kinds of items, custom totes are seen as having value. They're viewed as a higher-end item -- despite often not being much more expensive than custom tees.

 

Custom totes are also durable

 

 

 

Whether they're made with a cotton canvas, nylon, or polyester, tote bags tend to last a long time. Your customized tote bags might be used multiple times a week for years or -- in the case of a very sturdy design (like an incredibly-thick cotton tote bag) -- maybe even decades.

Of course, part of that durability will come down to the thickness and types of materials used to create the custom tote bag. However, the way it's used will also play a factor. A thin custom tote bag can outlast a thicker one depending on what's put in the bag. However, a thicker bag will have an easier time with sharp objects (like scissors) and heavier items (like books).

 

Totes and other custom reusable bags are environmentally-friendly

 

 

 

Plastic pollution is a major issue. According to some estimates, 500 billion single-use plastic bags are used each year. While many of them wind up in landfills (where they can take up to 300 years to biodegrade), others find their way into the ocean where they threaten marine life.

In order to curb this environmental damage, over 80 countries have a full or partial ban on single-use plastic bags. In the US, some states and towns now have plastic bag taxes or bans.

Given everybody needs bags, personalized tote bags are a great solution that helps cut down on the pollution caused by single-use shopping bags.

 

Most common reasons to customize tote bags 

While custom totes are a great promotional item under many circumstances, they're an amazing choice for the following occasions:

*Conventions (a.k.a. custom swag bags)

Business conventions and expos are notorious for the amount of swag you can get -- in fact, some employees volunteer to attend them just for the freebies.

By providing a custom tote bag, your promotional item will be seen by more attendees than the companies whose loot winds up inside the bag. And, as people's arms fill up, attendees who learn you're giving away bags will likely come looking for you -- giving your team a great opportunity to talk to prospective customers.

*Wedding goodie bags

 

 

Many weddings send guests home with a little something to remember the occasion, and the bag is often a part of it. A personalized tote bag is a great way to commemorate somebody's big day and a reminder for years to come.

*Baby shower gift bags

 

 

As with weddings, baby showers often include gift bags for guests. Considering at least some of the bag's goodies are going to be reminders, decorating the bags themselves is another option. And, unlike a lot of other baby shower goodies, guests are far more likely to keep and use custom-printed tote bags.

*Promotional tote bags for various business giveaways, etc  

Whether you're opening a business, running an event, or just want something nice to give customers, custom tote bags are a great choice.

Depending on your business, you could even sell your custom tote bags -- either passing your costs along to the customers who use them or maybe even making a profit while promoting your organization. This can be a completely organic choice for companies who have retail locations where the bags could be sold right at the register. Or, in the case of a beauty salon, goods can be bundled in a branded tote bag.

For certain kinds of businesses -- like resorts, country clubs, and theme parks -- the company's brand is a big deal and guests want to take a bit of it home. (For example, if somebody goes to Disney World, they'll want a lot of merchandise to remind themselves of the trip.) In this case, personalized tote bags can generate income as well as awareness.

 

How to figure out the best custom tote for your needs

 

 

 

What's the best custom tote bag? The answer probably varies depending on how you -- and your customers -- plan on using it. What might do an incredible job for one use could be lackluster for another or might involve an unnecessary feature. For instance, an oversized, thickly-woven tote bag with lots of pockets offers amazing storage... but it's probably way too much for most people.

Port Authority's All-Purpose Tote (the B -- available in navy, royal blue, or black) is an amazing bag. However, it's also a large bag. If somebody is only using 10% of the B's storage, it's probably not the most practical bag for them. And if the bags are being given away, the extra features add to the cost.

Here are a few of the things you need to consider when figuring out which custom tote bags work best for you.

#1 - Consider how the personalized totes will be used

 

 

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What's going to be the primary use for your personalized tote bags?

In some cases, you might have a few intended uses for a bag -- meaning it might start with one use (such as carrying promotional items), but then you want customers to use it for a more general activity. Therefore you may want a design that balances both uses. However, in most cases, you'll likely only have one use in mind.

#2 - Are you selling the custom bags or giving them away?

 

 

Whether you own a business, are running a charity, or are looking to do something nice for friends & family, you're likely on a budget. Therefore, price is going to be a concern for you.

However, if you're selling your custom-printed tote bags, that question might not be as relevant. In fact, even if you sold the bags for less than you paid for them, that money is still offsetting your expenses so the promotional tote bags aren't costing you as much. (Ideally, though, you'd like to at least break even or make a profit.)

Ultimately, the cost of the bags will impact some of your decisions. It's why you probably won't just go with Port Authority's B as your choice every single time. Instead, you might pick Bolt Printing's BP7LHT (seen above; available in one color). Although it's smaller and available in fewer colors, the BP7LHT tote bag is a lot cheaper which makes it more economical for a giveaway.

Just remember the cheapest option isn't always the best choice for a giveaway. If you're giving potential clients promotional tote bags at a convention, the quality of the bag may leave a subtle impression in a customer's mind. A company offering high-end solutions or products might look cheap if they were giving away seemingly inexpensive, plain bags. Likewise, a burlap-looking tote bag may not be the best option for a spa.

#3 - How much do your customized bags need to carry?

 

 

A giant-sized bag is awesome if you have a lot of stuff... but it doesn't make sense lugging around a huge bag if it's mostly empty.

Bolt Printing's gusset tote bag (the BP6GT) is a good-sized bag available in 22 colors. It works well as a general option, since it can carry a decent amount of stuff without getting overwhelming.

If you want to go a bit smaller, Bolt Printing's non-woven reusable grocery bags (like the BPNWSB, available in 7 colors) are also a great option.

#4 - Durability and sturdiness (ie, going with a thicker canvas tote bag)

 

 

What kind of stuff will the custom tote bags carry? If the bags are holding heavier items, you may want to look at ones with sturdy handles or a thicker material.

As with bag size, if you don't need the added durability and sturdiness, you can often save a bit of money by going with less durable and sturdy options.

[Note: Bolt Printing doesn't sell flimsy custom bags. Anything you order should stand up under normal use.]

#5 - The benefit of a pocket tote bag

 

 

Tote bags are great for providing a lot of space to store items. However, it's very easy for smaller objects to get lost in a tote bag, forcing you to dig around for them. This is where pockets shine.

By having pockets on a tote bag, you're able to store some objects in a spot where you can quickly reach them.

Port Authority's Two-Tone Tote Bag (B400, available in 4 different handle color choices) features a deep outside pocket. It's a perfect spot for storing a paperback novel if you're bring your tote bag to the beach. Or the pocket can be used for non-beach-reading activities.

Of course, if a single pocket isn't enough for you, Port Authority's B features both an outside pocket and an interior pocket (with a zipper!), which offers a bit more storage.

#6 - Screen printed tote bags vs custom embroidered tote bags

 

 

When it comes to personalization, there are a few ways to customize a tote bag. The most notable methods are printing and embroidery.

Embroidery is great if you're going for a more stylish tote bag. It's good for brands trying to convey a higher-end image, where they might have their logo near the top of the bag. Basically, it's a smart, chic look.

The downside to embroidery is that your cost is determined by the thread count. As a result, large designs aren't economically feasible. Because of both cost and style, the design will be smaller -- meaning it might be a little harder to see.

Screen printing, on the other hand, can give you a much larger design without increasing your cost. This means you'll have something that should be very easy to see, which helps when you're trying to get attention for your brand.

The drawback to a screen print, however, is that you're more limited in your color use. Using a lot of colors will increase your cost and there's a maximum number of dyes that can be applied.

Some bags are better for printing, others are better for embroidery. And, depending on the type of tote bag, you might have limitations on where you can embroider. (For example, you could risk sewing a pocket shut.) Likewise, some kinds of bags are less practical for printing. In at least some cases, the style of tote bag will decide how you customize it (or vice versa).

 

So, what's the best choice for a customized bag?

 

 

 

If you're feeling overwhelmed by the selection, here are a few quick pointers.

*Less expensive screen printed bags -- great for giveaways

 

 

For a neat giveaway item (if you're either looking to promote your company or want something for a special occasion), you can't go wrong with some of our favorite screen print tote bags. Although the styles are relatively basic, most are available in a few different colors.

[See the full selection.]

*Specialized custom "shopping" bags

 

 

If you have a brick & mortar retail location where you're thinking about selling personalized tote bags, our custom reusable section might be a slightly better option. These bags are great for groceries or anything else somebody might shop for. And, because they're a reusable item, they're eco-friendly.

For retailers who want to look sustainable -- and save money by encouraging shoppers to bring their own bag -- all of these are fine choices.

[See the full selection.]

*More expensive tote bags -- great as a higher-end, premium item

 

 

Depending on your company -- or the special occasion -- you might want to go with something a bit more expensive. In some cases, these tote bags might not be drastically more expensive than other options, so you might avoid sticker shock by remembering it's just a bit more than the alternatives.

[See the full selection of high-end bags, including other styles like laptop bags.]

 

Looking for a top tote-customizing company? Bolt Printing has this in the bag!

 

 

 

Our design lab makes customizing tote bags easy. Simply upload your artwork then place and size it how you like.

Need art? No problem! You're sure to find something in our extensive clip art gallery. We also have a wide array of fonts.

And best of all? If you're not ready to order today, you can save your design for later. So what are you waiting for?

Contact us to discuss your requirements of Custom Canvas Shopping Bag. Our experienced sales team can help you identify the options that best suit your needs.