How to Fold and Store Grocery Bags

      I've been wanting to do this post for weeks now, but life seems to have a knack for getting in the way. I recently had my two weeks of summer vacation from my previous job, the first of which I spent cleaning my house, and the second I spent traveling with Justin and my parents. And last week I started my new job at Opportunity Village. And I LOVE it!
      Any way. This trick came from one time when we were at Justin's aunt's house. She pulled out a perfectly straight grocery bag to use for something and Justin's dad asked her if she ironed her bags to get them so straight and smooth. In response, she pulled out a bucket of perfectly folded triangles that were her grocery bags! So I decided to try to reverse engineer it when I got home and see if I could figure it out. And it turns out it's super easy!
      I was able to take my stash of grocery bags and turn them from this:

To this:

And here's how!

      First, pick out your bag. Make sure you've got enough room to spread it flat. Pick one handle to start with.

Straighten out your handle as flat as it will go. On most bags there is a little seam that will be on top once you've got it all straight. It's pretty easy to find the ends of this seam and just gently pull on them to straighten it out.

 Do the same thing to the other side. Then the bottom. You'll be able to tell if your bag is inside out because you won't be able to find the bottom corners. The bottom also has a seam that makes things pretty easy.

 Once your bag is nice and flat and as smooth as you can make it, fold it in half so that the handles line up with each other.

 Then fold it in half again.

 At this point I like to turn the bag so the bottom is facing me because it makes it easier to do the rest of the folds.

 Next choose a corner to fold from and make a diagonal fold so you have a triangle at the bottom of the bag. I like to put on finger in the corner and then fold the other corner up to meet the edge. 

 Then fold up along the straight line that is now the top of your triangle. 

It should now look like this:

Now just keep folding, using the edge of your previous folds as your guide. You'll be folding it like a flag. When you get to the end of the handles you'll have to tuck them in to get it to stay folded. 

There should be a little pocket in the side facing the handles. (If there's not, don't panic! We'll cover that in just a minute.) I like to stick my thumb inside the pocket to hold it open while I tuck the handles down in.

 And there you have it! A nice, neat folded grocery bag. These things come in very handy. I like to use them to line my waste bins in the bedrooms and bathrooms. And with the bags folded so small we can easily store one or two in the bottom of the can so it's right there when we take out the trash. We also have one hanging on the pantry door to hold recyclables until we get around to taking them out. 

Now, if you didn't have the pocket to tuck the handles in, all you have to do is unfold it once or twice until you find the pocket. Since this usually makes the handles pretty long, I like to fold them into a little triangle that fits. Start the same way that you did at the bottom: fold from one corner, making the opposite corner meet the edge. 

 Then take the top corner of your triangle and fold it down to the opposite side. And then just tuck your little triangle into the pocket! 

I have been grateful for this trick because before I discovered it, my cupboard under my sink was a big mess with bags. I couldn't find anything in there without taking half the bags out. But with this I can fit all of those into a little box and they're so easy to find and use! 

Now, sometimes there are those bags that end up with holes in them that you really don't want to use for trash or such. For those, I have another solution that I'll tell you all about next time. 

Until then!