What to do with all those canvas bags?

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When we shop physically or online, we have to pay for receiving plastic bags. Therefore, stores now offer paper bags or even canvas bags. These are the more sustainable options when it comes to reducing the use of plastic. Those canvas bags are exactly what we are going to use today! Personally I am almost a collector when it comes to canvas bags. And I have not purchased one myself.

But what can we do with that pile of canvas bags? Well, there is one option that I like very much. And I will share it with you today!

.Canvas bags 2.0.

This option also helps more with making less plastic waste: grocery bags and bread bags! In the Netherlands it is common that when you buy bread it will be put in a plastic cover. Yet, this cover will always be thrown away when the bread is finished. When you go to the bakery to purchase your bread you can also ask the bread without any bag around it or to put it in your own fabric bag.

.DIY time!.

It is quite an easy DIY actually. Since, the canvas bags are usually the right size already. You can of course combine two bags together to make a larger one or to play with materials and colors. And otherwise you only have to do a few things:

• Remove the handles of the bag.
• Make the side seam open on one side for 4cm.
• If the top hem (original opening of the bag) is open or not finished properly, use a zig-zag stitch on your sewing machine to prevent the material from tearing.
• Fold the top hem down (fold after 2cm). And pin it to place.
• Sew the top hem again. The parts where you have opened the side seam will make a opening at the side of this sewn hem.
• Take some thick yarn (or the removed bag handles) and a safety pin to thread the yarn through the loophole.
• When the whole loop is formed, make a knot in the end of the yarn/material.
• And you are finished!

These fabric bread bags are super useful, since they are re-usable, washable, and even freezable. And they also give your un-used canvas bags a new goal. This DIY is only one of the options of what you can do with your canvas bags. Or course you can use them to take stuff with you, but sometimes you have more bags than items to put into. Then, this is an amazing way to make less waste and to give your bags a new purpose.

I also made a DIY for an easy pillow-case!

What do you do with your pile of canvas bags?