How Not To — Fuse Plastic Bags

Hey there I'm Robert MacEwan the author of Ideal Absolutes. If you're new to macewan.org, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed.

Many “How To’s” exist online. It occurred to me yesterday, as I watched Val’s futile attempts to create fabric from Piggly Wiggly grocery bags, that my writing and posting a series of “How Not To’s” might just help the common blog.

If you don’t shop at The Pig, other grocery bags will do, they just won’t be as fetching in design.

I filmed my wife and family for this How Not To.

Put an ironing board in the middle of a room. In this case, it’s Val’s studio. Plug in $6.99 Procter Silex iron bought 4 years ago at a Walgreens when pressing my khaki’s seemed prudent whilst we visited friends in NYC . It is, most probably, the cheapest iron ever manufactured. Turn the iron’s heat setting to the highest temperature and be sure to wrap the cord around the ironing board legs.

Encourage all the dogs you currently own or are baby-sitting for to run through the studio and out the back door. (On this particular occasion, three Jack Russell terriers and one slightly demented Scottie served the dog requirement.)

Give half-a-gabillion plastic grocery sacks, all of them crumpled and smashed into a giant Target plastic bag, to a 90-year-old woman and ask her to flatten them out individually. Tell her to stack them with all the handles facing north. *This was my personal favorite step.

Cut handles and fused ends from about 20 bags. Trim a sufficient amount, allowing for plenty of fubars while not destroying the entire gabillion bag collection.

Eat a piece of double-chocolate devil’s food bundt cake with butter cream and cocoa icing. When fully recovered from sugar shock, commence fusing attempt.

Layer six plastic grocery sacks between two pieces of parchment paper. Iron the whole ensemble for 15 seconds, constantly moving iron back and forth across paper. Flip the toxic fume sandwich and grill on other side.

Ooops, iron too hot.

Dammit! Iron too cold.

Wow, that plastic shrivels really quickly, no matter what the temperature.

Try it all again.

Laugh and start a new project.

Get real purdy fall leaves from the front yard. Place leaves between two sheets of waxed paper thus creating a red - yellow - brown speckled leaves with very small spider montage.

Iron the montage.
Smile and remember grade school — The Best of Times.