5 Uses for Your Plastic Grocery Bags

I know that I've not posted in a LONG time. Things in real life have been.....hectic, life changing and constantly evolving this last year or so. What starts out good, goes bad and then you kind of come out the other end in an entirely different spot than where you EVER in your wildest dreams thought you'd end up. Sounds like the plot to some life affirming book or a tear jerker movie but, it was my life. So, I held on with both hands and just went along with the ride!

I homeschool my sons and so that takes up a lot of time, not to mention their therapies 2 - 3x a week can wear a girl out! That all being said, my love for life is back, my love for blogging is back and I will be making a much more solid attempt to blog like I should've been doing this whole time! I have been very active on my FB page though, attempting to find the goodies and at least uphold some form of my responsibilities to you all. Thanks to those that have held on with me, I've sincerely appreciated it!

Alright, on to blog posting! :) As the gas prices rise to about $4 a gallon depending upon where you are in the U.S. and the prices of food and supplies follows, its' extremely important to make sure that you're not wasting a thing! Everything can be used, recycled or passed on to someone who might appreciate it. So, my mother and I spent a weekend when she was here, working on plastic bags. Not exciting by a long shot but, we got downright goofy doing it!

She made me a rather large, crocheted, shopping bag! We did it with the plastic bags you get from your local retailers too! Don't get me wrong, it took a lot of bags to do this but, she did a bunch of smaller ones that I gave away with my holiday goodies in December and then this one was my gift!

So, I'm not a big crocheter really, for some reason I'm just too easily distracted to do this. Though I can do needlepoint without looking....hmmmm. Anyway, she used a P hook and then just followed a purse pattern for the bottom and then as she says, made up it as she went along! It turned out very cute and I use it all the time. For more than just groceries too. It's become my actual purse!

Anyway, it made us both want to do more things with the zillions of plastic bags we have around this world! Especially since about 12 years or so ago, my mother used to work in the front of this pretty well known, national grocery store, that I won't mention the name of, and they always had this giant plastic bag recycling containers out in front of the stores. She was taught that they just dump them in the trash cans at the end of the day! That just irks me, so this is like our own fun little project now!

In our research on fun things, here's what I've found:
1. That trying to explain to someone how to make the bags into yarn was a lot harder than it should be, without showing them! So, it took a bit but, I found that Instructables.com had the best picture tutorial on how to do it, the way we did.

2. That there were a LOT of great ideas out there and some were really, really cute too! Like this great coffee  holder! Which I found at dabble.org. It also has a bunch of great ideas at the bottom of the page as well! 

3. In keeping with the coffee cup holder idea, here is a brilliant idea from Creative Jewish Mom, on how to make these ADORABLE coasters!

4. Another great idea from one our favorite sights, great for homeschool science ideas or just general knowledge, came from once again, Instructables.com. What a neat idea for a rug!

5. Lastly, this idea came from make-handmade.com and it happens to be my favorite one. How cute of an idea is that?! I loved it!

Now, I believe one of those pages also links to another where you can fuse the bags together to make fabric too. I have seen this in person one time, a lady had made hers into a vest of all things! There are literally all sorts of things you can do with these bags. So, before you throw them out, think twice about what you can do with them!