Picture it.
You come home from shopping and you have 10 plastic bags filled with groceries.
You unpack your bags, pack away the shopping, BUT, you don’t throw away the plastic shopping bags because you’re supposed to USE them again!
So what do you do with them? Where do you pack the bags? How do you pack them so they are neat and tidy?
I’ll show you how, right here. WITH PHOTOS! 🙂
I’m pretty sure you’ll say to yourself: “Self, why didn’t I think of that?!”
For all the pictures below, you should be able to click them to see a larger version of the image. I made them smaller so that you didn’t have to scroll as much…
Your plastic Pick n Pay Shopping Bag
First things first, let’s take a look at what kind of plastic shopping bag I’m talking about, JUST in case you had something different in mind:
Pretty little white bag, isn’t it 🙂
Step 1 – Begin Sideways Folding
Anyway, the first step is to start folding the bag in strips the length of the “handle”. Here are a few images to show you. (I apologise for the quality of the photos, my HTC Tytn II is not the BEST camera).
Step 2 – Triangle Folding
The next step is to start folding the bags using triangles.
Take a look at these next images to see what I’m talking about:
Step 3 – Final Stage of Folding
Once you get to the top of your bag, you should only have the handles showing (and not even all of the handles, but about half of them…).
Here’s pretty much what you should see:
So, the last step is to just tuck in the handles, and you’re done.
You should now have something small and easy to store, like the following:
Any other useful tips for everyone?
Do YOU have any cool ideas like this that you would like to share with the world?
Let me know, and we can put it up on the site.
oh wow! my sister has been doing that for years and i thought it was the dorkiest thing at first but it is actually a very creative and convenient way to store bags!!!! nice!=]
I’m glad somebody else is doing it as well. 🙂
Now I hope the idea spreads!
(And, you can tell your sister she’s not alone her dorkiness)
As a mother of soon-to-be 5 I was hoping to find something quick and easy. This is a cute idea, but time-consuming I think!
I guess it does take a little longer than necessary if you’re juggling 5 kids.
Let me know if you find a better way (and good luck with the soon-to-be #5 😀 )
I do this too!!! We can start a dork club…
I learned how to do this about a year ago, and it’s an AMAZING space saver! (Also makes it easier to just pop the bags into your handbag when you’re off to the shops next time.)I fold the bags while I’m unpacking the groceries, so I don’t really notice the “extra” work. Once you get the hang of it, it’s very quick to do (a couple of seconds). Definitely worth trying!
After unpacking the shopping is exactly when we fold up the plastic bags.
And, maybe it would be a good exercise/activity for some of your children as well 🙂