If you've been holding onto a pile of grocery bags and wondering whether they could be something — this tutorial is for you. I fuse plastic bags with an iron to create a sturdy, workable sheet of material, and in this video I show you exactly how to do it safely, plus 13 specific project ideas you can make from it: pendants, pouches, a journal cover, earrings, a pencil case, keychains, a glasses case, buttons, charms, gift tags, decorative shapes, coasters, and a placemat.
What we cover
This is a full roundup tutorial in two parts. First, I walk through the correct and safe way to fuse plastic bags using a household iron — including what plastics work, how many layers to build, and how to get a flat, even sheet. Then I move through all 13 project ideas, with a closer look at a few of them (the pouch, the glasses case, and the buttons) made on screen together.
What you'll learn
How to fuse plastic bags into a workable sheet, including:
- Which plastics work — grocery and shopping bags that stretch when pulled — and which don't (chip packets, non-stretchy plastics)
- Why to fuse two layers at a time rather than stacking everything and ironing at once
- How to use a flat weight to prevent bubbling while the plastic fuses
- How to sandwich the less attractive bags in the middle and save your nicest-looking bags for the outer layers
- When to trim the edges off your finished sheet (the uneven-layer areas along the perimeter won't be as sturdy and are best cut away)
How to make a hand-sewn pouch from fused plastic, including:
- Hole punching the edges and stitching with a blanket stitch
- Knotting securely — and why I tie several knots on top of each other rather than relying on glue alone
- Adding a woven detail on the flap and finishing with a square-knot string closure
A simple journal cover, sewn with a zigzag stitch around the perimeter — purely decorative, since the fused layers don't need structural stitching to hold together.
How to make jewelry and accessories from fused plastic, including:
- Pendants made from off-cuts, mounted on chain — the leftover scraps from other projects become the jewelry
- Mismatched earrings cut using a die cut machine (Sizzix), finished with eyelets and earring posts
- Keychains and charms from irregular cut shapes, attached with safety pins, bulldog pins, fishing swivels, and other hardware from a $2 shop
A glasses case with a zip closure — I show how to attach a zipper by hand, then sew across the bottom with a straight stitch to close it. Simple and entirely functional.
Fused plastic buttons, including:
- Cutting circles with a die cut machine or by hand (imperfect circles work perfectly well)
- Setting eyelets for the holes, or just marking them with a Sharpie if you don't have eyelets
- Using blanket stitch and gold thread to dress the edges up
Gift tags and journal tags, cut by hand with a ruler and X-Acto knife, finished with eyelets, string, stickers, and small charms.
Decorative shapes (hearts, squares, irregular cut pieces) with uses including:
- Wind chimes or hanging decorations for kids' rooms
- Hair clips
- Coasters and placemats (fused plastic wipes clean — ideal for functional pieces)
- Collage and quilting elements for art journal pages
- Art pieces assembled in a patchwork style, similar to paper quilting
Fusing plastic with napkins — I mention this briefly as a beautiful alternative: sandwich one ply of a decorative napkin between two layers of plastic for a result that looks completely different from bag-to-bag fusing. I have a separate video on this technique and link it below.
Tips & gotchas
Cover the plastic with nonstick baking paper every single time. The iron must never touch the plastic directly — not even for a second. Baking paper goes between the iron and your plastic on both sides.
Open windows and doors before you start ironing. Fusing plastic releases fumes. This isn't optional.
Build up layers two at a time, not all at once. Fuse two together, flip and iron from the other side, then add the next two. Four to six layers gives you a sheet sturdy enough for pouches and cases; more than that and you'll have something genuinely thick — fine for coasters, maybe not ideal for a journal cover.
Place something flat and heavy over the plastic immediately after ironing to stop it bubbling up as it cools.
Change your baking paper when you start to see colour transfer. Some bags — I found a potato bag particularly guilty — will transfer dye onto the baking paper, and if you keep using the same sheet that colour will transfer back onto your next piece. It looks dirty, even though it's just a colour bleed.
Test unfamiliar plastics before committing to a project. Some plastics melt much more aggressively than others. A quick test on a small piece saves you losing a whole sheet.
Use plastic that stretches when you pull it. Cereal bag liners and page protectors are the exceptions — they work even though they're not particularly stretchy. Chip packets and crinkle-style packaging don't fuse well.
Keep your nicest-looking bags for the top and bottom layers of your sheet, where they'll show. Plain, ugly, or heavily printed bags can go in the middle where no one will see them.
Trim the edges of your finished sheet before you start cutting projects from it. The perimeter areas often have uneven layer counts from when you were building up in sections — cutting these off gives you a cleaner, consistently sturdy sheet to work with.
If you've used a die cut machine to cut circles for buttons, you may find it doesn't cut all the way through on thicker sheets — just follow up with scissors. And if you don't have circular dies at all, a hand-cut circle is genuinely fine. I made one on screen and it worked perfectly well as a button.
The same sheet that becomes a pendant also becomes the off-cut that becomes the earring that becomes the keychain. Nothing goes to waste — and that, for me, is the whole point.
