How to Turn One Plastic Baggy into Three Baggies

Sometimes I don't want to waste an entire plastic baggy on a small amount of stuff. But I still want to separate out my small crafting items. I've learned a simple way to divide one baggy into multiples.

Time it takes:

Shoot, how do I know? (Okay...)
About five minutes or less.

Supplies:

* "ziplock" (press to seal) baggies
* tape (I prefer clear packing tape, but you can also use duct tape or masking tape. The width should be 2 or 3 inches.)
* personal paper trimmer and/or scissors

Method:

1. Start by flattening out your baggy. I slipped a piece of newspaper into my baggy to make it easier for you to follow what I'm doing. That said, it's MUCH easier to cut your baggy if you insert a piece of newspaper or waste paper as I've done here, because it gives the limp baggy some shape.

2. Now use your Fiskars personal paper trimmer--you do own one, don't you?--and position the bag to cut it. TIP: You will snuggle the top of the bag, with the "zipper," up against the guiding edge of the trimmer. TIP: Start your cut from the "zipper" down, NOT from the thin edge of the baggy up. If you start from the "zipper" down, the rest of the bag won't bunch up. NOTE: You could also use scissors. If you do, be careful!

Note that the green "zipper" is flush against the top edge of the trimmer. 

3. Cut the baggy into two or more smaller baggies. Remember--Take the blade up to the top of the baggy, by the "zipper" and cut down to the thinnest part of the baggy.

4. You'll now have two or three smaller baggies--but their sides aren't sealed! Hey, we can fix that...
Cut pieces of tape as long or longer than your baggy (measuring from the "zipper" to the bottom). Set these aside. You'll need one piece of tape for each open side. So, for three baggies, you'd need four pieces of tape. I used masking tape here so you could see what I was doing.

5. Attach the tape to an open side of a baggy--BUT position the tape so that it's half on the open and half off the open side. See below...

Notice that the tape is half on and half off the open side of the baggy. In other words, if the tape is 3 inches wide, 1 1/2 inches of the tape is stuck to the baggy and 1 1/2 inches is unattached to anything!

6. Flip your small baggy over. Fold the extra overhanging portion of the tape over to seal the other side of the baggy.

7. Press the two sides of the tape together to make sure you get a good seal. If the tape overhangs your new baggy, trim it--but be careful not to cut into the plastic baggy.

The tape is folded over to seal the open edge of the small, new baggy.

8. If you chose to cut the baggy into three smaller baggies, you now have two more baggies to seal up. One (the baggy cut from the middle) will be open on both the right and left sides. Tape both those sides closed.

Here are your three baggies--the one cut from the left, the middle one with two formerly open sides, and the right one (which is flipped over in this photo).

9. And here's the big question...what will you put in your baggies?

On the left, I have plastic "leather" and a seashell, in the middle are bells, and on the right are charms. These baggies were "sealed" with clear packing tape. At the top of the picture, you can see the baggies I made and "sealed" with masking tape. I prefer the clear tape because the entire bag is then see-through.

So tell me, what's in your baggy?

Sally and I want to know!

How cute is this? Two emery boards in the package, but we LOVE the graphics most of all

We'll send these darling emery boards to the person with the coolest answer! 

You have until Sunday September 1 at midnight to answer...and we'll post the winner on Monday!