Transforming evil plastic bags into a cool handmade journal

Plastic bags are evil. We know that. They mangle sea turtles and choke seagulls. They'll survive in landfills for thousands of years.

But that doesn't mean you can't make cool stuff with them. Like a journal cover.


To make this cover, I fused 9 plastic bags together with an iron (highest setting, no steam). Each layer had to be ironed separately. The top layers are semi-transparent, so you can see several bags at once.

Here's the inside of the cover. To make a straight edge, I folded over the edge and ironed it to the inside. (Thanks, John, for teaching me how to do this.)

I added several pages of watercolor paper inside and used a simple pamphlet stitch to bind them to the cover.

Here's the finished journal...well, almost finished. Stay tuned.

•  Instructions for fusing plastic bags