Tuesday, June 17, 2008

"Green" Shopping Bags



By now most of you have probably seen the green (as in conservation, not the color) bags being sold at many grocery stores. One of the major grocery chains in my area is Publix, and they sell these, as does Wal-Mart. The whole idea being that using and reusing these each time you shop will cut down on the use of paper bags or those plastic ones . I bought a few in the hopes I would manage to remember to put them back in the car after each shopping excursion. The day that I bought mine, the packer immediately used them, and I was surprised just how much they hold. My packer was quite the salesperson and informed me that they are designed to hold the equivalent of 5 plastic bags.

My only objection was that these beauties have the store name emblazoned across them, fore and aft! Now I never bought those designer jeans, ‘back in the day’, because I refused to use my backside as a billboard, and I still don’t want to! Besides, I want to be able to take these into whichever store I need to, and I would feel ‘tacky’ walking around with a competitors name all over. And how would the store know that I had already bought and paid for these on a previous visit??? I worry about stuff like that.. ....

Being the crafty and clever person that I am *choke*I decided to eliminate the advertising while personalizing and beautifying my bags. Being the oblivious dork that I sometimes am……well, take a look!


See bag melt; see iron with bag fused onto it! I thought I would take the quick and easy route and use Heat N Bond, but as you can see, the bag is now ventilated and my poor iron is a mess. Since I had been pressing some OC blocks (gratuitous quilty comment) I thought the iron may have still been too hot….I waited a while and tried again with the iron at the lowest possible setting. DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!! All I can say is, bless the guy that invented Teflon and the guy that put it on irons! Without them, I’d be out iron shopping.

Anyway, that put a hold on things for a bit. Last Wednesday my quilt guild took a field trip to 3 LQSs and followed up with lunch. The first store that we visited had some really great food fabrics in FQs. You know that they just called my name! How perfect for my green bags! (You do realize that buying an FQ is like eating potato chips, once you start……)

This time I used a decorative stitch around the rough edges. The FQs were of watermelon, chili peppers, oranges and one with artichokes and rutabagas.


9 comments:

Amanda said...

What a great idea, and so much quicker than making your own. I must try that with some of my bags.

Sweet P said...

I love how you dressed up your bags. They are great!

Shelina said...

I hate the advertising too. This is a great idea - I've been thinking about buying those bags, or making my own. This seems like a perfect compromise!

Nancy said...

Great idea! I have some bags from Krogers that I'd like to cover up their name on too - but I do like the size of them. Maybe some orphan blocks?? You've got me thinking!

Where in GA do you live? I am not there yet, but hope to be when hubby retires. 3/4 of our kids and all 3+ grands are in the greater Atlanta area.

Kate North said...

I have to say, i never worry about which bags I have in which shop - I just collect them as I need them (that is, buying a new one when i have forgotten to come out with one in the first place) and they live in the boot of my car - I've been using non-plastic for a couple of years now and I like them SO much better than plastic (for one thing, they never tear through when you put something heavy or pointy in them) - and they are so much more common here now that checkers always ask if you want a bag... Very soon, shops will start charging for plastic, which I am all for.

All that said, I like what you've done with yours.

Candace said...

My father always said he wasn't paying money to advertise for some company. Yours look great, and I like the idea of being green. Someone said that in their area they got a .05 cent credit for every bag they saved, and I think that is only fair. When we needed some extras, Publix charged up .10 cents each. I think it should go both ways.

scraphappy said...

I love what you did to your bags. I've been making my own out of leftover home decor fabric. I have a tutorial on my blog: http://superscrappy.blogspot.com/2008/06/fabric-grocery-bag-tutorial.html

ForestJane said...

Great idea!

I like the ones with the bright bits added too - next time you have to tell the bagger that 'vegetables go in the rutabaga bag, fruits go in the oranges one... bottled water and drinks go in the watermelon one...' lol

Dare ya!

The Calico Quilter said...

I had to laugh in sympathy with your iron misfortune. I have done some terrible things to irons too (like ironing on freezer paper templates for applique but getting it turned upside down and fusing the freezer paper onto my iron, where it doesn't come off nearly as easily as on the fabric); teflon soleplates have saved me several times. I have those Publix bags too and love them since they hold so much, but I feel like a walking billboard carrying them home - I may try embelishing them too. Thanks for the idea.