How to make large juice pouch notebooks

Since I needed to make large juice pouch notebooks for the teachers of the classrooms that recycle for me, I thought I would take pictures of the steps involved in making them.
Cleaning: 1. Cut a hole where the bottom of the pouch expands. Then proceed to clean it in the sink or in the top rack of the dishwasher. Let it air dry for at least 2 days (until it is completely dry on the inside).

2. Take the plastic straw holder off of the pouch. Remove any remaining plastic from where the straw was attached. Spray some Goo Gone on the pouch where the straw was attached. Let it set for a minute. Then wipe off the stickiness.



Materials need to make a large juice pouch notebook:
- Scissors
- paper (10 to 20 pages per notebook)
- exact o knife
- ruler
- surface to cut on
- 8 juice pouches that have been precleaned as instructed above
- sewing machine with a denim needle and thread (gray works great)

This is what I have my sewing machine set at. I find that the straight stitch seems to tear the pouches easily. I prefer to use the multi-hole zig zag stitch.








I use the lines that are already on the pouches as a guide so that I am always overlapping them the same every time. I like to sew 2 pouches side by side first.



Sew four sets of these to make one notebook.







Then over lap the bottom of one set with the top of another set. I use the top line of the pouch (where it is sealed and still one layer) as a guide when overlapping.




Next you sew the bottom of the 2 sets of 4 (the bottom of the front and back of the notebook).




The sewn group of juice pouches equals 7 inches by 10 inches.





You need to cut your paper so that it is 7" x 10". Cut up to 20 pages per notebook.




Sandwich the pages between the 2 sewn juice pouch panels.






Sew the layers together. I don't like to sew more than 20 pages with my machine, because I have had my needle break a few times on me in the past.



Now you have made yourself a 7 1/2" x 10 1/2" notebook made from recycled materials. You can sew this by hand. I recommend using a small hole punch to make the holes. Then you can use a tapestry needle and embroider thread to sew the layers together. I teach kids how to make the small notebooks that way (it uses only 2 juice pouches).

What I'm working on...

I've been cutting plastic bags and making yarn out of it. I'm trying to drastically decrease the amount of plastic bags that I have in my home right now. They are not all mine. People that I know give me their plastic bags to recycle. Some bags I am saving for fusing projects though. You can find directions in a previous post form this month.

My to-go project is the crochet soda tab flowers. I carry it in the craft bag that I made out of my son's pant legs. You can see an image of that bag in an earlier post. I think I made it earlier this year.

I have also been working on the Grandmother's Flower Garden quilt that is made out of t-shirts. I also made some t-shirt yarn as well.

The telemedia studio is going to be closed for 4 weeks this summer. It just happens that it closes when I come back from vacation. So after this week I will not be taping any new shows until August (if life permits). However I will have taped 3 shows this month, which is enough to last until August as far as airing goes. One show will be aired 3 times a week for 2 weeks. That gives 6 weeks of running show time before a new needs to be made.

I have also been making juice pouch notebooks as a thank you to the 5 classrooms that recycle them for me. I now know that 5 classrooms is too much for me to handle by myself. Four classrooms is my limit.

Projects to finish before the end of the month:
- Fused Disney plastic bags. I am 75% finished with this. I would have finished, but I wanted to wait until after the plastic bag show just in case I needed to show how to steps.
- Disney t-shirt purse. I have a red Minnie Mouse t-shirt that no longer fits right. I want to turn it into a purse before our trip.
- Quilt my grandmother's quilt. I can quickly sew on the binding and work on it on the road. It needs to be finished by July 7th. All my other projects caught up with me and it got put on hold.
-Make 132 juice pouch notebooks for 5 classrooms as a thank you for recycling them for me. I have made 110 so far. I should be finished with that today.

There are other projects that I would like to work on, but these are the projects that have a deadline.

Valentine's Fused Bag

I want to have a whole episode of the show be on how to make a fused plastic bag. First I needed to see if I could fill a 30 minute show with this project. So I set my timer to 30 minutes and went about making this bag. The 30 minute timer went off before I was even finished ironing the bags together. So now I know that I need to have the ironing finished before taping the show. I will show how to iron / fuse a bag, but not the same bag that I will be sewing at the time.





For this bag I fused this purple bag to 2 layers of white plastic shopping bags and two layers of a very thin pink garbage bag. I also fused 2 layers of the pink garbage bag and 2 layers of a red bag. I then cut out hearts from these two colors. I then fused the hearts into place on the purple bag. I cut the handles for the bag from two ends of the unsewn fused bag. I folded about an inch of the pink side over onto the purple side and sewed it down. Then I folded the purple sides together and stitched the three sides. I also stitched a 2" triangle at the bottom 2 corners. I flipped it right side out. I folded the 2" handle strips into 3rds and stitched the fold down. I pinned them 2" in from the sides of the bag and then stitched all the way around the bag.

I noticed that this heart was not fully fused. I took it back to the ironing board, placed the parchment paper inside the bag so that I did not fuse the fromt to the back of the bag. I did not pay attention to my iron setting, and I had set it to cotton. It was way to hot and burned holes through my bag. I cut some left over purple plastic and placed it inside the bag under the heart as a patch. I then made sure my iron was set to wool / silk, then I ironed / fused the patch to the back of the heart.

Crochet Soda Tab Flowers

Last night I learned how to crochet soda tab flowers. I followed the instructions found in this link. The first one that I made, the purple and yellow one, has ridges in on the front center. After that I crochet the center on the back side instead. I would love to crochet or knit a purse and stitch these on it. They would also make nice broaches. I also want to try and crochet plyarn with the soda tabs. *Note: I made 7 crochet stitched on each of the soda tabs to begin the center of the flower.

Christmas quilted wall hanging

I am trying to get ready for next week's show. I will be talking about quilting my grandma's Swiss fabric calendars. Because I did not want to dive into quilting something so valuable to me, I bought some Christmas pieces that are similar to the calendars. I pieced them a few years ago. I started quilting them today. I'm not to happy with the results. I have puckers on the front because I machine quilted it. I prefer to hand quilt for this reason. However I did not have time. I might go back and rip out those stitches at a later date. Either way, I will be hand quilting the center of each panel.

Its Easy Being Green: Plastic Bag Crafts & Frances Killam. Show Notes.

The first episode of "Its Easy Being Green" was taped on Friday, June 12, 2009. The topic was crafting with plastic bags. My guest was Frances Killam.

Making plastic bag wreaths.
Skill level: easy (no special skills required).
Materials: 1. a wreath frame (I used a wire wreath frame that I purchased from a craft store).
2. Scissors
3. A twist tie, like from a bread bag
4. About 150 grocery store sized bags. The bags need to be about the same size in length, not width.
5. Embellishments and ways to attach them (glue, twist ties, etc).
Directions: 1. Cut the handles and the bottom seam of the plastic bag off. I save these and use them instead of packing peanuts when mailing items.
2. Take the bag and tie it around the wreath frame in a knot.
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2, scrunch up the tied bags together on the frame so there is no open spaces left.
4. When the frame is completed covered in tied plastic bags, flip over to the back. Attach the twist tie through / around one of the ties bags, and secure. Make a loop out of the twist tie. This is so that you can hang your wreath up.
5. Flip the wreath back over. Now fluff up the bags. This will hide the knots and make a full looking wreath.
6. Attach your embellishments. You can attach a bow with a hot glue gun or a twist tie. For the Christmas one, I attached red Coke bottle caps with a hot glue gun. They resembled berries to me. You can make embellishments out of cardboard and scrap wood as well. Use your imagination. This looks great on a door, and it is pretty weather resistant.

Making plastic Bag Yarn or Plyarn.
Skill level: easy
Materials: plastic bags & scissors
Directions: A video from The Carol Duvall Show.
Notes: You do not need to know how to be a knitter or a crocheter in order to make plyarn. It would be a great gift to make a ball of plyarn for someone that you know who does knit, crochet, weave, etc.
Patterns: Anything that you can make out of yarn, you can make using plyarn.
For a simple yet very sturdy tote bag, knit or crochet a large rectangle. When folded in half, that will be the size of your bag. Gage: Just figure out how wide you want your bag to be and add 2 to 4 stitches to that (for seam allowance). The bigger the needle or hook, the bigger the holes and the faster the project goes. My prefered knitting needle size for this project is a US15, and I like to use a size J crochet hook. It takes about 15 hours to make (including making the plyarn).
When you have the size rectangle that you want, then attach the handles. You can make your own handles or use ribbon. If knitting the handles, prestretch them before attaching them to the bag. You can also place holes in the bag in the beginning and end to use as handles instead. I attach the ribbon handles by sewing the end to the middle of the rectangle on one side (like the right). Then I sew it in place to on end. Measure out how big you want your handles to be. Then stitch the ribbon down on the other size. Measure out the handle again. Then finish sewing down the other side. You can do this by hand or by sewing machine. Then fold the bag right sides together. Crochet or whip stitch the two sides closed. Turn the bag right side out. Now you have a tote bag that cost you little to no money that can hold a lot of stuff.

My favorite online pattern website is lionbrand.com. You can find all kinds of free knitting and crochet patterns there. You might also want to join Ravelry.com. Its an online knitting and crocheting community where you can find patterns and join groups that like to make things out of plyarn (among other things).


My guest: Frances Killam.
You can visit Frances Killam's website at http://www.digmuse.com/. She is a fiber and metal artist. She came on the show to talk about the brain coral that she had made using mylar, a heavy plastic material. She was inspired by Margaret Wertheim and Christine Wertheim. The link attached to Margaret Wertheim's name will take you to a video where she talks about recreating coral reefs out of fiber. The link attached to Christine Wertheim's name will take you to website that talks about the toxic reef. This is where plyarn and other recycled materials were used to make a reef. This is what inspired France's brain coral that she brought on the show. Frances also showed us how to spin plyarn using a Navajo spindle. She also added some tinsel to the plyarn while spinning.

Future plastic bag craft topics:
-Fusing plastic bags to make smaller yet sturdier bags.
-Crocheting soda pull tabs with plyarn.


Up Coming Shows:
-Guest Bonnie Rankin will join me and we will be making quilts, window valences, and other things out of handkerchiefs and fabric wall calendars that we have inherited from loved ones.
-Quilting, how it had been a source for reusing / re purposing fabric for years. We will be focusing on the pattern Grandma's Flower Garden. We will be making templates from recycled materials, using left over fabric, and old t-shirts.

Winter & Disney Fused bags

Last night inspiration hit me. I wanted to design my own fused plastic bag tote. I have some beautiful blue bags, and I was trying to think of how to be more artistic with fusing them. That's when the idea hit me. Snowflakes!!! I fused a single white plastic bag to itself (2 layers). I then dye-cut small snowflakes out of it. It was easier than dye-cutting paper. I had about 8 layers dye-cut at the same time. I then used 2 blue plastic bags together (4 layers). I arranged the snowflakes on it, then I fused them down. After that I sewed up my bag. This probably took me about an hour today. I love it! Since it was so easy, I might just make a bunch to use as gift bags for Christmas.


Here is what my Micky Mouse bag looks like so far. I still need to attach the handles. I left them off so that I can show steps in my show tonight. I just love this bag. The inside is fused pink garbage bags that I bought at the dollar store.









This bag came from my local quilt show. I love the design. It is just a flat fused panel right now. It is one of my steps for the show tonight. I might not be able to show how to fuse plastic bags tonight. My 1st project will be making plastic bag wreaths, followed by making plyarn (plastic bag yarn). Then Frances Killam will come on and show her plyarn brain coral. She will also demonstrate how to spin with plastic bags. If I have time, the fused bags will be next. If I run out of time, then I'll just make a part two to this episode.