I am on the board of a group that owns a historic one-room schoolhouse in our community. We hold an annual yard sale every year to support the restoration and preservation of the schoolhouse. We often have people donate these bags, which we sell at the yard sale for 25 cents each (and they sell like crazy!!). Perhaps there is a charitable organization in your community that might like to re-sell them?

I've been using mine for re-gifting. I also gave a stack to my mom and other relatives that regularly go to showers to spread the free gift bag love.

I buy gift bags at our local salvation Thrift Shops for 25-50 cents each. You could donate them to a second hand store.

If your baby has a closet you could use some for storage.

I use one in the freezer to store frozen breastmilk (in those breastmilk bags that are stackable once the milk is frozen). Like this:

http://greenlitebites.com/BreastMilk/

The bag doesn't last forever, so it's nice to have extra on hand.

@lydiac6710 That breastmilk storage idea is awesome. Thanks for sharing!

I use them all over my house for storing things like hats/gloves/mittens
or board games that are missing boxes.
If you are into crafting and scrapbooking, they are great for storing paper, pictures, stickers, etc. I also use bags in the laundry room for holding piles of rags or socks w/o mates.

Here a few blog entries showing how I use mine around my house if you want to see pictures:

http://cleansmartsimple.blogspot.com/2011/01/place-to-hang-my-coat.html

http://cleansmartsimple.blogspot.com/2010/11/drool-worthy-inspiration.html

http://cleansmartsimple.blogspot.com/2011/01/more-skeletons-in-my-closet.html

I have 3 main uses for mine.

First, I re-use them for gifts I give out as much as possible.

But for those that are too wrinkled or torn I try to embellish them to use for gifts as well. Like the Victoria Secret shopping bags are very sturdy but very cute too with the pink stripes. I just cover the logo with a ribbon and a sticker jewel, depending on who the gift is for. You can add die-cuts, ribbons, buttons, paper trains, dinosaur stickers, etc to spruce up a used store or gift bag.

And finally, I use them on long road trips. They fit perfectly b/w our mini-van seats. I store the dry goods, snacks, juice boxes, etc in them bcse they are so sturdy and they usually last a few trips.

I cut up the bigger bags and used them as drawer liners in my son's room. You could also cut out shapes and make a mobile like this one on etsy:

http://www.etsy.com/listing/59441850/paper-dolls-butterfly-mobile-great-for?ref=sr_gallery_20&ga_search_query=hanging+paper+mobile&ga_page=2&ga_search_type=handmade&ga_facet=handmade

I second giving them to other friends and relatives and donating to thrift stores or salvation army or maybe operation shower which hosts baby showers for women whose husbands are overseas, I bet they could use them too.

Our city mission hosts a "baby shower" every year for women in transitional situations who are having babies, they request gift bags as a donated item!

I once posted my many bags on freecycle and got A LOT of responses. I gave them to a church lady who used them for their rumble sale. I now have about the same abundance of bags, but I will give them to the school which is having a sale in the spring.

I have a drawer that I use to store gift bags, and it doesn't bother me that I have two dozen baby gift bags...the supply will last me forever.

The ones that are too wrinkled (or too ugly!) get used for a variety of things: small ones work for lunch bags (reused over and over til they wear out); large ones get used when we travel, carrying Christmas gifts, stuffed animals, snacks for the car, etc.

There are tons of organizations that host baby showers for women in need, like pregnancy support organizations, domestic violence shelters, etc.

Someone mentioned using them to store scrapbooking supplies, but you could use the bags themselves in scrapbooking too - any with embellishments, you could take those off and use them in an album, and you could also use the pretty paper that the bags are made out of to cut out shapes etc.

I had this problem as well so I posted the group of bags on my communities Freecycle - you could also use the "free" area of Craigslist. A volunteer for our local animal shelter picked them up. She said they use the gift bags to send home a gift to families when they adopt animals. You may try contacting your local shelter to see if they would like to use the bags for the same purpose.

I use them to store clothes (on the top shelf) in the closet. Something seasonal or things that are too big.

Use them to store clothes... sort all those tiny little vest, leggings etc... I use them to store clothes that I am not using right now... So I have a couple labeled "newborn," "0-3 months," and "3-6 months." and so on...

Use the smaller ones for lunch bags.

I cut up the gift bags and wrapping paper from my showers and used them for art projects to decorate the nursery.

Put them on the free section on Cragislist, if you're not going to reuse them in some way ditch the clutter.

My son (3) went through one of those phases where he insisted on taking his favorite toy-of-the-day with him when we left the house. I would use these bags for him to carry it/them in. It saved me from having to personally keep track of lots of small things and he thought it was particularly awesome to carry a little handle-bag with us to the car.

Find a friend who had boys and trade some bags with her. I did that and it helped get rid of some as well as having some bags for my friends who were having boys.

I re-gift some and use some for baby clothes storage. I've also used them to take meals to new moms in my playgroup. One of my coworkers actually gave her baby bags back to her friends after her shower so they could use them again.

I donated mine to a local crisis pregnancy center. They said that they often end up giving out supplies to expectant moms in plastic grocery sacks and having actual gift bags makes it much nicer.

Craigslist.org - free section - is always a good idea. But, in addition to resale shops, you might see if any local baby shops would reuse them as sacks for purchases.

I love the donation idea. I re-use them to give gifts. I use some to store clothes in the cedar closet.

But, they get the most use because my daughter loves to play with them. She puts toys in them and carries them around the house. She puts them on her arm, waves to me and leaves the room. It is so cute and it's a free toy. What more can you ask for?

Others have mentioned similar ideas for baby gift bags, but for the "happy birthday" bags that we get, we donate the gently used ones to www.birthdaywishes.org, who hold birthday parties for homeless children. They're in MA, NY and RI, but I wonder if there are similar organizations around the country?

Craigslist, freecycle, garage sale... etc.

I used mine for my daughter's scrapbook but you could also use them to decoupage a keepsake box, photo album, a piece of furniture like a small chair or table. Or make cards out of them.

Like the person above, I've kept mine for my daughter's scrapbook. You can use them as actual pages or just the pictures in place of those expensive scrapbooking stickers. Another thing I plan on doing is cutting them up and framing some of them. A lot of people have been using scrapbook paper to either frame as art or to use as matting. If you can use the bags as scrapbook paper, you can use the bags as art too. =] I just like the idea of telling my daughter when she's older that the things on her wall are the gift bags from her baby shower.