Homestead Diva: New Ways To Recycle Plastic Bags

Well, THAT'S not new news. Plastic shopping bags are forever. Well now they can also be a girl's best friend.

We'll get to that in a minute.

Plastic bags are handed out by the millions and billions every day. Every kind of shop from grocers to upscale outfitters have their logos printed on a flimsy plastic bag, which needs to be doubled to carry anything heavier than a dust mite. What do you do with them once you get them home?

Some stores have areas where you can recycle them. I used to do this until one day I happened to catch an employee of the store dumping the recycle bin into the dumpster.

Some people use them as small wastebasket bags, which really only delays the inevitable.

However some people have figured out how to create fashinista nirvana. Yep. Plastic bags are a fashion statement.

Take a look at this raincoat. It was created out of plastic shopping bags. I could go for a raincoat like that, in a size 10 please.

Searching around the Internet I have seen everything from plastic bag yarn to plastic bag jewelry to plastic bag fashions. Imagine the joy on a teen girl's face when she was presented with a purse created out of Old Navy shopping bags. Imagine making a grocery tote bag with a combination of Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and Kroger bags, or upscale gourmet shop bags. You could make a dog coat from PetSmart bags or a shower curtain from Bath and Body Works bags.

It's endless. The ideas are mind boggling.

You will definitely want to visit the tutorials to get a real understanding of this process. Basically you open the bags up at the seams and cut of the bottom so you have a flat piece of plastic. You do the same with another bag.And another. IN fact you need between six and eight layers of plastic.

Now, sandwich the layers in between two pieces of freezer paper, and apply heat from an iron. Keep the iron moving and flip the whole thing after fifteen seconds and repeat on the other side.

Hopefully when you remove the freezer paper you will have a durable plastic fabric that you can use for various crafts.

I can all ready think of things to be made around here: tents, horse blankets, wallets. I bet you could even make some pretty weather proof mittens with them, from bags from a sporting goods store.

Imagine the new opportunity on eBay as people clamor for more and more plastic bags to the point that they become either shopping maniacs or trash pickers! Try some of these. I am going to. In fact, the things I have in my mind to do first are:

1. place-mats

2. wallet

3. purse for my granddaughter

4. re-usable grocery bags

So, do you have any ideas? I just think this is an amazing craft!