Since the success of last year's Green Valentine Party, our family has been looking for ways to personally reduce the carbon footprint of each and every holiday. This Valentine's Day was no exception.
It started with the kids and I reaching a fun compromise for this sweet-nothing filled February 14th. It was a lesson that paired frugality with eco-friendliness. We would forego purchasing the traditional paper valentines in exhange for their choice of treats to share with classmates. We soon realized, however, that the candied treats would be missing the affectionate "to/from" messaging without the accompanying paper valentines. Scouring the house, we soon found that the paperboard packaging, from 12-pack cans of diet coke/coca-cola, when cut into colorful heart-shaped cards, was a fun, reusable and recyclable solution. The kids enjoyed personalizing each unique coca-cola paperboard heart and attaching to it a special treat. Once finished, they placed all the Valentines in their own upcycled target treat bags. (Read on for more details.)
Tell you more about the upcycled target treat bags? Being the room parent for my youngest's 1st grade class, I took on the task of creating treat bags for each of 24 students. Putting a slightly different twist on one parent's clever idea from last school year's green valentine party challenge, I fused 2 target bags together, using parchment paper and a hot (dry) iron. After trimming to size, I sewed 2 sets of the fused bags together to form a bag or pouch. The bags are complete with handles (either using ribbon or simply cutting an oblong hole in both sides of the bag). The result is a super-cute, easy, reused, upcycled bag in a red and white bullseye pattern.

Start by straightening out plastic shopping bags, and lay them flat, back to back, with patterned sides facing out. Trim off handles. Place the 2 bags between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Fusing 2 bags together gives each side of the bag enough strength. Move a hot, dry iron over one side of the parchment paper, in a back and forth motion. Flip entire stack over, and iron the other side. Remove parchment paper and you will have a fused plastic sheet. Trim plastic sheets to desired size. Stitch together 2 sheets, along 3 sides using a serger or sewing machine, leaving one side "open" as the top of the bag.
Each of the finished target treat bags, required a total of 4 reused Target plastic shopping bags. Our project, 24 finished bags, reused and upcycled 96 plastic shopping bags. If you cannot collect enough bags from friends and neighbors, Target stores have a bin where shoppers can deposit used plastic shopping bags for recycling. We used Target store bags because of the design and color. These bags are a good weight and thickness (in mils) for a fused plastic project. You can layer more than 2 bags before fusing for a thicker finished plastic, depending on the type of end product you are creating.
We took plastic shopping bags, most destined for a landfill, and upcycled them into usable treat bags. The project cost nothing more than our time and creativity (with the exception of some ribbon and thread).