Upcycled Grocery Tote Bag

This is a bag made from something many of have a lot of: plastic grocery bags. The project uses supplies most people have around their home and there is  no sewing or measuring involved. 

Supplies
- 30-40 Plastic grocery bags.  Note: The lesser the quality of these bags, the better. Bags with an oily sheen may not fuse together as           
easily. 
- Parchment Paper
- Iron

Cut the handles off of each bag. Then cut down side, across the bottom, and up the other side of the bag. You should now have two pieces, roughly square-shaped. Repeat process for each bag. 

Lay down a large sheet of parchment paper. Arrange bags on top in an interlocking pattern. Iron on medium setting over wax paper. Peel back parchment paper quickly while the plastic is cooling. You'll know the iron is too hot if the bags quickly shrink when you use the iron or if there are holes in your material. Just enough heat to melt the bags works best. 

The material should be about the thickness of a blue tarp. Once you have an approximately 4' by 2' piece of material, bring each end together to create a cylinder. This will be the size of your bag, so adjust accordingly. 

Place a sheet of parchment paper inside this shape and iron the seam together. You should now have a cylinder of plastic. 

Repeat step three, except this time make your seam on the bottom of the cylinder. At the end of this step you'll have an almost functional bag. 

Make sure to place a piece of parchment paper inside your bag so that you don't fuse the whole thing together!

Create handles for your bag by using existing scraps or by making two new long strips of plastic. 

Place some books or other objects in the bag to make sure it can handle groceries before going to the store. If it can, congratulations on completing this project. Show it off at the grocery store and spread the word!