A Bag Made From Plastic Bags!

I am on a spring-cleaning binge.  I'm also in a "let's save the earth by recycling" mindset, so that slows down the cleaning process quite a bit.  I don't want to just throw things into the landfill.  That's why I have a room full of boxes of stuff to sell at a garage sale.  Soon, soon . . . .

So when I looked at the giant bag full of recyclable grocery bags in my pantry, I knew I needed to do something with them.  Sure, I could take them back to the store and put them in that big "recycle your bags here" box, but who knows where they really go from there?  I decided to make something from them.

I've run across pictures and tutorials about making things from "plarn" and I decided to try it.  Plarn is yarn made from plastic bags.  Basically, you cut the bags into strips that you loop together and then use them like yarn and crochet something.  There are tons of tutorials for this process.  Here is one.  

Once you've made your plarn, you have to make something with it.   Most people seem to make bags---like bags you can bring your groceries home in.  I loved the concept--use plastic grocery bags to make a reusable plastic grocery bag!  It's so reductive!

Here's what I made.  

 
I got real fancy and kept the different bags separate.  The bottom half is Wal-Mart bags and the top half is HEB bags.  It seems very sturdy.  I believe you could probably carry a bowling ball in it!  It is smaller than I thought it would turn out, but it is not as scratchy as I thought it would be.

Here's a picture with a 2 pound coffee can inside:

It was an interesting project.  I'm not sure if I'll make another, but it was a good way to get rid of a ton of bags (I probably used at least 50 bags to make this one).  If you are interested in trying it, there are lots of patterns available on the net.  Here is a random one.