Shopping Bag DIY

Earth Day is Monday.  It is one of my daughter's favorite holidays.  Her birthday is near Earth Day, and so she feels very in tune with it.  She is my little Earth Girl.  She loves projects that give her the opportunity to recycle, reuse, or reduce.  This year for our Earth Day project we re-purposed two of her favorite shirts into re-usable shopping bags.  She outgrew the shirts a couple of sizes ago, but couldn't bear to let them go, so with a few cuts and about 5 minutes worth of sewing we converted them to shopping bags she can use for years to come.  (Stains and all!)  The whole project only took about half an hour, and is simple enough for an 8-10 year old to do independently. Here is what we did...

Start with any t-shirt.  (Non-fitted shirts will give you more square bags.)
Choose old shirts from your closet or hit up your local thrift store.

Cut off the sleeves as close to the seam as you can without cutting the serged edge.
Not cutting the finished edge of the fabric will help prevent fraying.

Turn the shirt inside out and fold it in half.  Use chalk or pencil to mark where you
want to cut around the neck.  Use straight pins to hold the layers of fabric in place.

Cut along the line you drew.
Here is what it will look like at that point.

Flip the shirt inside out again, and sew a straight stitch across the bottom hem.
Here is the finished product.

What ideas do you have for recycling, reusing, and reducing?

Karissa