Bags Monsters?

If you don’t know who the bag monster is or what he looks like take a look under the sink or in your kitchen drawers! Be careful, he’s awfully Ugly!

The Bag Monster is an eye catching character created by Andy Keller from ChicoBag™. It is a tool for activist or people looking to educate their community made with 500 plastic bags. This number is the average of Plastic Bags used by North Americans in a year–. This Costume invented and actually trademarked by Andy is worn by volunteers in many events to visually show the impact single-use plastic bags have on our environment. Make sure to visit his blog. It has very important, up to date environmental news regarding plastic pollution www.bagmonster.com

In the past months I have been contacted frequently by people asking for ideas to promote awareness around the plastic bag issue. I love the idea of  the Bag Monsters but Andy’s version is not very practical for everyone. It’s hard to store and not everyone will like to do something so wild. So here’s another version that both grown up and kids will love making and keeping! Everyone can have lots of fun and the little monster can spark up conversations around this important issue. They can be given as gifts and if you add a string you can even hang them up in your car to remind you to bring your cloth bags to the supermarket!

Making a Fused Plastic Bag Monster:

1. Take many different color bags, you can included all types veggies, bread, chips etc.
2. Cut them open and lay them between two Baking papers on your ironing board. Use a couple of layers. Four to six should be enough. Add in the center all the bits and pieces like handles, and the foil part of the chip bags makes a great effect.
3. Iron until they are fused. You will need to try the temperature since all iron are different, if too hot, plastic will melt, if not hot enough the layers will not fuse. Another important precautions is to do the fusing preferably in an open and airy space.
4. Once you have your plastic sheet fold in half and with a marker, close your eyes and make any shape you would like your monster to have. It can be just a circle or it can be really weird, like you!
5. Cut the shapes out. Since the sheet was folded in half you should end up with two identical pieces.
6. Sew them together, leaving a space so that you can stuff your character.
7. Stuff your monster with more plastic bags!
8. Finish sewing up the monsters.
9. Now it’s time to get really creative! Use as many recycled materials as you like.
10. Bottle caps are great for eyes and mouth. You can also open a small hole in the center, by taking a nail and hammering a hole. After this they can be strung together and they make cute legs and arms.

When working with children, take the necessary precautions. You do the ironing and the hammering.

You can make many shapes beside a monster. I love the idea of making Turtles with kids. Plastic Bags are extremely dangerous for these beautiful animals; they are often mistake them for food. Once they ingest them they can die by choking or starvation. Making turtles with children is a wonderful way to create love and a feeling of protection in your child towards these amazing creatures!

Fusing plastic is an easy way to reuse bags and there are so many projects than can be made with them from portraits, handbags to crazy monsters! Please if you use this activity, I would love to know how it went.  Send pictures!

The idea of these cute plastic monsters came from Recycling is Fun where you can find hundreds of  projects on how to Re-Use Plastic Bags.  To introduce you to this wonderful Non for Profit Organization I would like to share with you this short video my husband Mani and I made for them. Hope you enjoy it!