Has anyone heard of or tried using paper bags for floors, counter tops, or stairs?

I was looking up flooring and came across images of people that used tore up paper bags, Elmer's glue, stain, and polyurethane to cover their floors with. 

When I typed in cheap flooring in the Google search I was expecting cheap carpet or even dirt floors but not paper bags. The even stranger part is that they look really good so I looked more into them. I found out people use them on their stairs, counter tops, and walls. One site had a couple saying how much cheaper it was to use the bags instead of carpet in their rental units and it lasted much longer. 

Has anyone tried using paper bags for anything like this? Does it last good? I would like to have a different color than brown but now sure what types of paper could be used.

Here is one of the sites I was read that shows the before and after photos. http://compulsiveintexas.blogspot.com/2011/11/brown-paper-bag-bathroom-floor.html

I may have to try this technique. I seen some photos of desk tops and stools that looked good.

I told my FIL about it this morning and he is interested in trying it out on different stuff. He was wondering if he could take and use the bags and lay some leaves on them if it would work. 

We might try and do several different tests to see how well it turns out. If It works out well I might even be able to use some of the not so good wood to make furniture and cover it up with the paper. I'll definitely take some pictures if we try it.