Manic Mondays: Fusing Plastic

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I would really like to thank the first person who thought of ironing plastic bags together to make a thick piece of plastic that could be used for about 10 GAZILLION things....But I have to sleep sometime so I'll just list 10 things at the end of this tutorial.I didn't use any bags for THIS tutorial though. I had about 6 Dollar Tree plastic tablecloths left over from my baby shower so instead of throwing them away...I kept them! And I wasn't sure what for exactly till this weekend when I came across an article for fusing plastic bags. I thought I'd give it a shot with the tablecloths, and come to find out...It works!

 

  LET'S FUSE SOME PLASTIC!!!

What you will need: 

Plastic bags (Wal-Mart, Target, HEB, etc) or plastic table cloth.

An iron

Parchment paper

Grab your table cloth and fold it till you get 4 layers of plastic. If you are using plastic bags, you would use 2 plastic bags (but you can experiment and use more if you like).

Then cut out squares or rectangles (depending what your going to make in the end). My cut rectangular cut outs are 20.5 x 13.5. They shrink after heat is applied so make sure you cut big enough pieces to make up for the shrinking.

Then you are going to sandwich one of the 4 layered cut outs in between two large pieces of parchment paper You could even use some old towels for a neat texture. Do not use wax paper.

Take your VERY hot iron and iron on top (with some pressure) of the parchment paper being careful not to get any plastic on your iron. This will ruin the iron. Also make sure there is no water in your iron to make a mist. It causes bubble and the plastic won't properly fuse. Check every couple of minutes to see if your plastic has fused together. It should not take too long at all. And when your done, it will look something like this...

Pretty neat huh??? Now you're asking, "What could I use this for??". Well I have found a few useful ideas...

You could make:

-reusable grocery bags

-a purse or clutch

-snack bags for the kiddos

-jewelry

-place mats for the table

-some artsy clothing

-picnic blanket

What ideas do you think you could use fused plastic for???