Most retail stores, I’ve found, rely heavily on the use of plastic bags.  While supermarkets seem to be heading in the direction of cloth bags and bins, the rest of the retail world seems to be lagging behind.  As a result, it’s easy for me to end up with bags full of other plastic bags taking up awkward and valuable space in my kitchen cabinet.

So, in my continuing quest to find ways to be creative with things that would otherwise be trash, I scanned the internet to see what I might do with these bags.  I found my answer on the Etsy website and the result is the photo you see below – a messenger bag made completely from old plastic bags that have been fused together to form a very strong and waterproof fabric.

The process of fusing the bags together was fairly simple and the resulting bag looks like old worn leather.  I don’t know it this can be considered art but it’s definitely crafty and I had a lot of fun making it. To try this project yourself, see the tutorial at ETSY-LABS.

Messenger Bag - Wendy Campbell

I’ve been a big city dweller for most of my life and one thing that continues to astound me is the amount of useless paper I encounter on a daily basis.  Junk mail, free newspapers, magazines, and catalogues, cardboard packaging – the list goes on.  I wanted to do something artistic with all this paper but didn’t know what.  A quick Google search led me to the idea of making a basket/bowl out of old magazines.  A simple tutorial from Cutoutandkeep.net showed me how and the photo you see here is the result of my first try.

Some may think that, yeah, that’s kinda cool, but I have better things to spend my time on – think again – I produced this bowl while watching TV, and listening to my Japanese language course – things that I would normally be sitting still for that didn’t require a whole lot of concentration.  I actually found the repetitive nature of the process mind calming, allowing me to focus even more on the Japanese course.

Magazine Bowl by Wendy Campbell