Drowning in grocery bags?

[Tarot]

betz white: this bag is not a toy

this bag is not a toy

Every time I come home from a store with my purchase in a plastic bag it bums me out. Ack! How did I end up with another plastic bag...I hate them! There are just too many of them in the world and I am vowing to stop contributing to the demand.

Luckily, there are a lot of posts popping up around blog town on ways to reuse these nuisances to society. Whip up has a nice round up of posts on the topic of fusing plastic bags together to create a "new" material. I followed the etsy labs tutorial using an iron, some bags, and 2 sheets of paper to do these experiments:

I fused blue, orange, and white bags together. I cut them into flower and leaf shapes then fused them between layers of a clear bag. Cool! I love how the light looks coming through them. You can see the one on the right isn't fully fused at the bottom. I think the bag I used was too heavy.

For this experiment I cut long wavy strips out of fused bags, layered them, then fused again into a big sheet. I made this little bag just to see how the material would sew up. It's very much like Tyvec and easily went through my sewing machine.

I don't know how safe it's be, but this stuff would make a luminous lamp shade of some sort...

I'm not sure why I am so enamored with this. It seems like a big departure from what you usually see here on my blog. It's pretty similar in concept, though, to my felting. It uses recycled materials, it's easy to cut and apply graphic shapes, and there's no raveling or need to finish raw edges. Weee!

I am definitely going to use this technique to make up a shopping tote. Next time I go to the store I will say NO NEW BAGS!

[Ariel]

Plastic grocery bags make me It seems like anymore they want to double and triple bag everything too.

Those are great! I'm off to the tutorials....

[Cherry]

Looks like they would make great gift bags too (the one you have held up to the light).

[Friskay]

I like those ideas.

You can also wear them.
DIY: Plastic Bag Fabric: Reclaiming Plastic Shopping Bags for Good (TreeHugger)

Or make forever grocery bags out of them.

My Recycled Bags.com » Recycled Plastic Grocery Tote Bag