Plastic Bag Envelopes

RecycledSandals.com is happy to announce that the Canadian Postal service will accept our recycled envelopes. I was a little worried about this, but as it turns out, they didn't even bat an eye when I handed over the .7 kilo package with overlapped logos and ragged edges.

I have fabric grocery bags, but damned if I can always remember to take them to the store with me. Making plastic grocery bag envelopes give me an excuse to keep bags and bags of them hanging around. They are an office supply for us!

I didn't invent this. I found the idea online and decided to try it out myself. Now, all of our sandals are shipped out this way:

Ingredients:
6 plastic grocery bags
2 or 3 extra bags for patching

Tools:
scissors
3 sheets of parchment paper
1 large towel
1 clothes iron

1. Heat iron to medium setting; lay towel out flat on a table.
2. Flatten and smooth the plastic bags and cut off the handles and bottom seams.
3. Place on sheet of parchment paper on the towel, put three of the plastic bags (these will be double sided, so six sheets of plastic in total) on top of that, and top with another sheet of parchment paper.
4. Iron. Press firmly, but don't stay in one spot too long, as this will create shrinkage and holes in the plastic. Lift of the parchment from time to time to check your progress and see which areas may be bubbling and need some extra pressure.
5. Repeat 3.-4. with the next three bags.
6. Check over your work, looking for holes. If there are any, these can be patched with the extra plastic bags, just cut out some pieces slightly larger than the holes.
   
7. When both sides of the envelope are finished, stack them together and place the third piece of parchment paper on top. Trim the parchment leaving about one inch of plastic sticking out on all sides.
8. Place the trimmed parchment between the two sides. This will keep your envelope from being fused together. Cover with another sheet of parchment, and iron just the edges on three sides. (The fourth side, of course, needs to stay open so you can put something in your envelope!)
9. Finally, stuff your envelope with whatever you want to send and, using the parchment paper again, iron the fourth side shut. You may be surprised at what a sturdy envelope this creates!

A couple of extra points:

• larger envelopes can be created by overlapping more bags in a wider or taller arrangement
• print or write the mailing and return addresses on plain paper, then place clear plastic bags (vegetable bags are great for this, but lower your heat setting first) directly over the label and iron it on
• trim the edges of your envelope to make them a little neater in appearance
• play with your creativity...use bags with cool colours, logos or slogans, or cut out these elements and iron them to your finished envelope as an embellishment

I hope that one day, we see these in our mailboxes all the time. :)