I cut off the bag handles and bottoms and ironed the remaining rectangles together to build up a large sheet. (I lost track of how many bags; basically I kept adding one or two until I was happy with the strucural integrity.) I used the iron’s cotton setting and covered the bags with a cotton floursack-style towel I didn’t care about. When I had a thickness I liked, I added some more focal bits cut from other bags to create a bag masterboard. Before ironing:
Then I cut ATC-sized pieces. For the focal points, I cut shapes out of a rejected base experiment where I layered abstract painty elements between pieces of packing tape. (I like that effect as an ATC base, just not for this swap.) A bit of stitching with embroidery floss and they were done.
These are so cool! Thank you for sharing how you made them. How rigid is the resulting “paper”? This has me wondering if you could use this technique to make “fabric” to sew into something.
I’d say these ended up medium-stiff, but that’s because I kept adding bags to get something that felt comparable to a traditional ATC base. You could definitely get a more flexible fabric with fewer bags. I don’t know how well it would hold up for wearables, a purse, etc. But I seem to remember seeing people make reusable shopping bags out of fused bags, so maybe.
I’m fallin’ for this awesome featured project this week! 