My uber creative niece expressed no surprise when I told her that I discovered you could sew on paper. I wanted to make money cards for Christmas and one morning between sleep and coffee, a solution drifted into my consciousness such that I understood the perfectness of using a light bulb to represent inspiration. It was exactly like that. Out of nowhere, “I could sew it!” Ding! By 4 a.m. I had confirmed my theory and was loving the results. Old news or not, I might as well have discovered fire.

Needing containers for my collection of cassette tapes that are awaiting digitization and inspired by first considering a grocery bag – a terrible idea as it would have been too deep to be useful – I remembered my experiment and came up with a shorter, more rigid bag that works great.

Sized to maximize shelf space, a shorter bag means that I can easily see what’s inside.

How to Make a Custom Bag with a Grocery Bag

Supplies:

• 2 grocery bags that are the same size
• Ruler
• Pencil
• Stapler
• Marker
• Paper cutter wide enough for the bag; rotary cutter, mat, and straight edge; or scissors and a straight edge
• Tracing wheel
• Iron

Steps:

1. Remove the handles of two grocery bags, being careful not to tear the bag or the handles. If you do accidentally tear anything, don’t worry about it. Set aside one of your bags and the handles you just removed for later use.
2. Measure from the bottom of your grocery bag up to how deep you want your bag to be. Make a dot at this point with a marker (Dot #1). So, if you are making a bag that will be 5″ tall, you would measure 5″ from the bottom of the bag to Dot #1.
   

   Measuring from the bottom of a grocery bag, mark how deep/tall you want your new bag to be.

3. By measuring from the dot you just made (Dot #1) upwards to just short of the height of your bag, mark Dot #2. So, if you are making a bag that will be 5″ tall, Dot #2 will be a little less than 5″ above Dot #1.
   

   A Sharpie marker works great for marking your dots.

4. Cut off the top of the grocery bag at Dot #2, the top dot. Save the cut off piece for Step #6. I love my Swingline paper cutter for this job. A rotary cutter, a mat and a straight edge would also work. If you use scissors, draw a straight line around the bag before cutting.

   

   I wasn’t sure if this paper cutter was going to be what I needed. So, far I haven’t run into any serious limitations for the types of things I am doing.

   

   My paper cutter has different settings for cutting, creasing, perforating…

5. Make a crease at Dot #1. I used the crease setting on my paper cutter to do this and it worked great. A smooth tracing wheel might also do the trick.
   

   The crease will make folding the bag easier.

6. If needed, trim the top of the grocery bag you cut off in Step #4 such that when it is inserted in the new bag you are making, it falls just below the crease made in Step #5. Insert this piece inside the bag, loosely lining up the sides and corners as shown.
   

   

   Lining the inside of the bag with this extra scrap will make it sturdier. I turned my liner inside out, thinking that it would look nicer to show the pattern. However, this gets covered up, so skip that step.

7. At the crease made in Step #5, fold the top of the bag down inside itself. This will cover up the liner you just inserted and hold it in place.
   
   

   It’s starting to look like something!

   

   There!

8. Sew a hem along the top of the bag.
   

   I wish fabric handled as easily as a grocery bag does! Different bags behave differently.

   

   The bag will turn itself as you sew.

   

   Voila! A low-cost way to practice sewing!

9. To make the bag more rigid and look crisper, pinch the corners and sew them in place with a few stitches.
   

   The bag works fine as is, but its sides are buldging a little.

   

   Pinching the corners takes up the slack and gives the bag a neater look.

10. Sew the handles you saved from Step #1 onto the bag as you like. You can use a temporary staple to hold them in place as you sew.
    
    

    Almost done!

    

    I’m loving how these are turning out!

11. Fold your second grocery bag (handles removed) such that it is the size of its bottom. Trim off any extra paper that won’t easily fold and stay in place. Sew the folded bag around the edges to hold it together. Place the finished piece in the bottom of your new bag.
    

    The extra bottom will help hold the bag together.

    

    The insert also hides rough edges.

12. You can iron the bag if you want it to look a little crisper. Put a cloth between the iron and the paper.
    

    

    The altered bag is amazingly strong. For example, it would take some effort to remove the handles.

When someone is sending electric shocks to the hair follicles on your face, you’re apt to listen more than talk. I listened and learned about The Charge – Activating the 10 Human Drives that Make you Feel Alive.

Bev had good things to say about this latest recipe for success and while it made me cringe with its nauseatingly pat tagline, I bought a copy, taking cover under the notion that it would give us something to talk about. While it’s fair that a definitive list of life’s secrets might induce involuntary eye-rolling (I always wonder, “Why ten?”), there is no call for anyone’s tiresome skepticism here.

Upon finishing the book, I gave my copy to a friend who was in need of some insight as she navigated an unbearably dysfunctional job situation that was undermining the confidence of this otherwise competent and fabulous young woman. I thought about JoAnne a lot as I turned the pages.

It had something for me too. While The Charge is the reason why I took on some scary projects instead of lesser undertakings and while it reinvigorated – at least temporarily – the blind courage of my 20-something self who somehow ventured off to Brussels with little money, a copy of Let’s Go Europe and a plan that went as far as “Take the train to ‘Le Gare du Nord'” – I mostly liked it for its solid practical tips more than for its fleeting inspirational passages. For example, “When this, then that” can help you develop lasting good habits. The idea is to add an action onto a well-established routine, as opposed to trying to change a behavior without the benefit of context. It’s the difference between saying, “This year I’m going to eat better!” and saying, “From now on, when I finish dinner every day, then I am going to eat an apple.”

It’s not sexy, but we use the rule to keep the litter box clean. Since it’s in the basement, it could easily be out-of-sight-out-of-mind until there was a revolt. But we have forstalled an uprising by saying: “When we feed the cat in the morning, we then clean the litter box.”

The Charge is loaded with other – probably better examples of – tips that made it worth it to replace the copy that I gave to my friend. While my enthusiasm for it might have been a case of my being particularly receptive to its insights for whatever reason when I first picked it up, I suspect that the book will hold up nicely as a reference.

When I got home from the potluck, Brian had thai take-out waiting for me. I love those moments when you recognize that someone knows you. He knew that I would be too wrapped up in the meeting part of the potluck to bother getting a plate. He knew that the meeting would go well and that I would come home hungry.

If you have any extra seedlings, I would be happy to adopt them. I can use them because this year I was too swamped with… stuff… to get seeds started. Merriam Station Community Garden would also be happy to use them for their plant sale on May 4. They are raising money to pay for a water system… kind of important for a garden. I never tire of the miracle of watching a seed sprout. You might not be able to relive a first kiss or the first time you were allowed to take the car by yourself to pick up some milk, but watching a plant sprout, flower, fruit, die… feels brand new every time. Every single time. Next year. Next year I’m going to put those containers I collected to use. I won’t care about what’s pressing. I won’t care about deadlines. Now that I know the emptiness of skipping it, next year I’m going to fill up the place with trays and trays of plants for the garden.

The chick in the nest outside my window turns out to be a robin. At first he was just the tip of a beak that you could hardly see, but he’s actually quite big. Judging from the fight I witnessed this morning, he could have been a small black bird. I recognize twine from my garden in that nest. I know it’s mine because I watched (and sort of helped) a bird carry it away. I can’t stop looking out the window.

This morning I had an errand to run. When I saw that my normal route was blocked by utility trucks, I tried another route only to find that it too was blocked. But I persevered and eventually made it to my destination. Does this qualify me to write a book about the 7 secrets of starting your own business just 30 days? I think it does and I think I will.