Plastic and paper bags have been pretty much outlawed in Santa Monica, CA.  You can get one, but it's going to cost you some change.  Because of this new law, I've gotten really good at bringing my own market bags but that doesn't mean that I don't sometimes forget them at home and end up doing a balancing act of carrying several items to my car.  By having cute bags, how could I possibly forget?  I love showing these bags off.

Market bags are great!  Not only are they earth-friendly they're perfect for carrying so many more things than just groceries.  To make your own is a really easy project that only takes a few supplies and can be done in a relatively short time period.  Also, there's so many cute laminated cotton prints available, so no one should be stuck with ugly, boring bags.  This is also an easy project for beginners, so go ahead and jump right in.  You can also easily change the dimension of these bags to suit your needs.  In this tutorial, I give you the measurements of the panels I used to create my market bag, but you can easily adjust it to make it larger or smaller.  If you don't have a rotary cutter, feel free to download or pattern available above.  I used webbing for my straps, but if you have extra fabric from your bag, you can also make your straps out of that.

After that, it'll be up to you to take your new market bag out for a spin the next time you go shopping.