Bag-igami

This past weekend my sister taught me a new skill that warms me to my ever so slightly obsessive-compulsive core. She saw it on Pinterest, and I have no idea how I've lived so many years without it.

It involves the dreaded pile of plastic grocery bags.

You know - the ones that accumulate under your sink or next to the door inside your garage. And no matter how you try to stuff them into something, anything that will corral them, they're either escaping and puffing up and blocking access to your dishwasher detergent, or they're packed so tightly into some container that when you finally manage to spring one free, twenty more follow and drop all over the kitchen floor.

The solution? Well, I've decided to call it bag-igami. Like origami, but with plastic bags. It's magical.

This is what my plastic bags looked like before, all stuffed into a plastic holder that's supposed to make them easier to store and dispense, but is just bulky and impossible to extract a single bag from.

And this is how they look after the miracle of bag-igami.

Seriously, how is that possible? It's as easy as pie - but simpler to explain with pictures than words.

You just smooth the bag out flat, fold it neatly three times lengthwise, and then start folding a triangle from the bottom corner. If you get to the top and can't tuck the handles into the flap, go back a few folds and redo it a little tighter (or looser).

The initial organization was a little bit time consuming. It doesn't take long to fold up one bag, but I had dozens to do. I just sat and folded while I watched TV one evening and it was over before I knew it. And now I have tiny, neatly packaged bags that I can just drop in my purse, the glove compartment, etc.

With two messy boys, you never know when you'll have an urgent need for a bag to carry home wet clothes or shoes, flowers, stones, sticks, pinecones... you get my drift.

It really is a thing of beauty. But it makes me wonder what other mad skilz big sis is holding out on!