When our family travels to Kenya this summer to work at Mercy House, my hubby and I will be doing some staff development and teaching some skills, along with the staff there. The girls will be learning many things, including sewing, soap and basket-making, gardening, paper beads and beading and even paper mache art.
Mercy House will buy the products from the girls and sell them in fair trade coffee shops and online stores.
For months, we’ve been working on narrowing down ideas to four solid products-we have three so far: (handbags/headscarves from Kenyan fabric, unique paper bead necklaces (different from what’s out there) and funky paper mache mobiles for home decor.
This one didn’t make the cut, but it was so fun to learn, I thought I’d share it with you.
Did you know you can fuse plastic bags from the grocery story to make a heavy tyvek like material? It’s easy. You simply place the plastic between newspaper and iron it! Here’s a video tutorial.
Once you have your fused plastic ready, you can sew it just like fabric and make amazing things!
Here’s an easy business card holder w/a felt applique made from thin plastic grocery bags:
The sky’s the limit with this recycled idea!
P.S. Next week, for WMFW, there’s a suggested theme for those of you who may run out of ideas: Spring Cleaning Tip! You can link up old or new posts and you don’t have to follow the theme if you’ve got a good tip to share!
That is really cool! I didn’t know you could use the bags like that.
Thanks for sharing Kristen!
~Liz
That is pretty awesome… seriously. Definitely going to have to try that out! I just got in business cards for my website and was telling hubby I now needed a business card holder. Perfect!
very cool idea! i don’t comment much, but know i am a HUGE fan of you and your blog. you bless me.
I had never heard of this. I’d have to think what I could use it for, but I might experiment with it just to see what it is like.
Thanks for hosting this link party.
I never would have thought you could make something beautiful out of plastic bags from the grocery store! Amazing.
What a smart way to make use of all those leftover grocery bags! Thanks for hostessing.
WOW!! What a fantastic tip!! I’ll have to think of what I want to use it in!! Thank you!! Thanks for the fantastic link up party as well!!!
I am sharing my recipe for Pureed Zucchini Soup With Sun Dried Tomatoes. This is a great soup to make ahead and freeze.
Thanks for hosting!
Thanks for hosting
I’ve been working on a way to make reusable grocery bags out of these. I can’t recommend strongly enough that you set your ironing board outside when you do the melting. The house gets stinky really quickly otherwise!
Love these and have seen other purses made out of fused plastics. I can see why they were nixed though because there are a lot of steps to making the card holders. Thanks for hosting and love the green, recycle inspiration. Fondly, Roberta
Yes, I did know about this and I even tried it. But mine didn’t pan out so well because the stitching sort of perforated the ‘fabric’ and sadly, that was where the strap was attached to the purse. But your little holder is super cool.
Thanks for hosting! I added you to my More Than A Blog Hop Directory.
Quick Tattletails More Than A Blog Hop Directory