We’re in the middle of our Earth Day celebration by altering paper clips. I thought I’d add to the recycling by adding another level and reusing plastic bags as part of my project. I used the fusing technique by Tracie Lampe in her book Upcycled Accessories: 25 Projects Using Repurposed Plastic.
To start, I used a leftover treat bag I’ve had laying around from a birthday party for years. I placed it on top of several grocery bags and sandwiched them in between parchment paper. You need the parchment paper so you don’t ruin either your iron or work surface. Then you iron the bags on high heat. It only takes a few seconds and you need to keep the iron moving. The plastic will melt together and give you a thicker and more durable piece to work with — kinda like making your own plastic fabric.
Once the bags were fused, I decided to add another piece on top of silver garland ironed in a clear bag. The nice thing with this technique is you can keep adding plastic shapes and pieces on top til your heart’s content. I then cut the edges around my sports bag, added a bit of sewing to jazz up the edge of the silver part, then cut it into two pieces.
I used the Best Glue Ever to adhere each piece to both a paper clip and a scrap piece of patterned paper. I also used a bit of glue to hold down a corner that hadn’t fused all the way.
To finish these tags, I added a bit of embellishments — stickers, ribbon and some wooden stars. I love these wooden stars and use them in lots of projects. The Best Glue Ever makes it so easy to do! I’m going to use these as gift tags on a few birthday presents.
If you try this technique — and you should (it’s really addictive)! — one thing to watch out for is not flipping your parchment paper over and over. I didn’t realize that some of the ink from the plastic had gotten onto one side of the paper…. which ended up on my iron.
However, I grabbed my bottle of the Best Cleaner Ever and spritzed a tiny bit on to a paper towel and started wiping. It came off easy peasy!
Inspired? Make one of your own and get a coupon for FREE S/H (or $5
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