Awesome Recycling – Fusing Plastic Bags

Do you have a bunch of plastic grocery bags stashed away somewhere in your house?  You know you need to recycle them… but they are still there growing in number.  Well we do here.

A couple of weeks ago – before I began focusing my creative juices on Family Nester, I was thinking to my self, “self, there must be something I can make with these things.”  I though, “maybe a kayak – they make the cool play boat kayaks out of molded plastic…groceries are made of plastic…”  Well my line of thought took me to the internet searching melted plastic and then eventually leading me to something called fusing plastic bags.   Below is a video from Etsy’s YouTube page that shows you just how fusing works:

I found several different things on the web detailing just how to fuse plastic and several examples of things people had made – the majority being reusable grocery bags…  So what I was I going to make?  I came across the TimBuk2 Lamatron bag – I love TimBuk2 bags… so I thought I can make one of my own.  Here are a few pics of how things ended up – I decided to use an Old Navy bag for the sides and an Barnes and Noble bag for the center.

To keep the ink from the pictures on both of these bags I covered them with ink less bags to seal in the image; thin white ones for the old navy bag and clear for the Barnes and Noble one.  I made 3 long sheets of the fused plastic bags – then fused them together to make the bags (not recommended…I recommend sewing the strips together, our sewing machine is in need of repair).  The end result was a cool bag made from about 30 bags – my oldest daughter was quite happy as she got to have the bag.

Have any of you tried this… if so share your results with us, or give it a try and share your results.

Nester Dad Out…