Day of the Dead Bag - fun With Simplicity Pattern 1153

I decided now that I'm working at Jo Anns in the fabric section, I had to have a fun go-to project for when I came across good deals on cute cotton prints (which happily is fairly often). I now live in a city that has a bag ban and all shopping bags have to be ones you bring from home, so basically everyone needs shopping bags. Well there you go then, a unique opportunity to make something that everyone in my immediate area can use that can be custom made to suit the person receiving it. And if the bag itself isn't enough of a gift you can always fill it with something else. ;)

I started experimenting with Simplicity pattern 1153, as you can see it's got good bones, it just needs to be a bit bigger. I took the pattern in to Office Max and had them blow up the pocket section to 13 and 1/4 inch along what will ultimately be the bottom of the bag (I couldn't have the main bag section of the thing blown up because they said it was too big for their machines - no biggy, it's identical to the pocket section just taller, so I will adjust the height as I please).

I've made no enlarged copies of the straps but they seem only slightly smaller than what you'd find on a standard fabric shopping bag so I'll probably just widen them out a little, it looks like the length of the straps is good for the larger bag I've got in mind, as it's already long enough for a purse. A standard fabric shopping bag is 12 inches along the bottom and 14 inches from bottom to top. Since I'm starting with a bottom that's 1 and 1/4 inch larger than normal I may increase the height a little beyond the 14 inch mark, I'm thinking 15 inches or 15 and 1/2 inches from top to bottom. I plan to add 7 1/2 inches in height beyond the printed copy of the pocket to make up the body of the bag. Wish me luck. :)