recycled plastic bag fabric

While on my quest for cheap reusable shopping bags, I stumbled across bag fabric. I watched a tutorial and read up on it a little but knew it wasn't what I was looking for so moved on. In the back of my mind I kept thinking of the cool it looked and the things you could do with it...plus you gotta blog about something cool!

1)In a well ventilated area (I did it outside) Cover your ironing board with paper.
2) Turn bag inside out(especially if it has printing on it, the outside fuses to things easily)
3) Do step #6 then fold bag into quarters
4) Cover with another sheet of paper
5)I thought I read set iron to rayon, but polyester worked better for me
6) Should be much earlier, its a double oops. I realized at this point maybe it would iron better without the handles(and it did) then loaded pictures pretty much in the order I took them and am too lazy to go in and re-edit
7) Trim so you have straighter edges
8) Lay them out in a pattern or design you like
9) Flip it over and tape the edges to keep the design you liked
10) Sew together using long stitches, the closer the holes are the easier it will be to tear since you are giving it a perforated line to tear on

Have fun and be creative

• I took a plastic lei apart to use the flowers and played with putting them inside the bag or laying them on top
  


• I had a bag I didn't want the design folded and ruined so I folded another bag around it
  


• I cut around the petals of a flower so I could pull that layer on top while the layer of plastic it was fused to was really on the bottom
  

Things you don't want

• Air bubbles and holes in the bag (I think air bubbles are from not enough pressure or not hot enough and holes are from too much) I was ending up with a bit of both till I got the right temp
  


• Too much heat or forgetting to turn a bag inside out can cause fusing to the paper(good thing about paper and plastic, get it wet and the paper rubs off easily leaving the plastic undamaged)
  


• Run out of thread while sewing, puts unused holes in the fabric leaving the fabric weakened