How to make a pencil case from a plastic food bag

I was inspired to try this project after watching a Terracycle youtube video on how to make a coin purse from a plastic food bag.

However, I like taking the easy way out and my bag already had 3 closed sides, I was definitely not cutting new pieces just to sew them back together.

My personal no. 1 rule of upcycling is take advantage of as many seams as you can. (okay so that's for clothing, but why should plastic be different?).

So here's how I did it...

What you need:

1.  a strong plastic, empty, rinsed, food bag.

2.  scissors

3.  a zipper that's a little longer than the opening of the bag

4.  thick needle

5.  color-coordinated thread.

Instructions:

Step 1:  Use your scissors to cut the bag at the height that you want your pencil case to be.
  (admission of guilt: being as lazy as I am, and not owning a ruler *gasp*, I estimated the height on each side rather than measuring equal sides, which is why the final product's a little skew).

Step 2:  Tape the zipper to the edge of your bag. 

Step 3: Hand sew the zipper to the bag with a double layer of normal thread and a thick(ish) needle.
I say hand sew, because if you have kept the original three sides like I did, it would be very difficult and probably impossible to maneuver around the sewing machine.

Step 4:  Sew the edges of the zipper together and tuck them in.

And that's it!  In only four short steps, you have a fully functional upcycled pencil case.

Happy Upcycling!

Remember, I loooove your comments:

Would your kids find an upcycled pencil case cool? or geeky?

How to upcycle a juice carton

Milk and Juice cartons are unfortunately (at least where I live), unrecyclable.  I try to buy these items in alternative, recyclable packaging, however I still do end up with quite a few cartons.

Disney Family Fun has a really cute video tutorial on how to make a wallet out of these cartons. 

So voila !

... here's my first upcycled juice carton wallet

For instructions, and a link to the wallet template click here.

but here are some of my own tips

1. watch the entire video before you begin - my first attempt I skipped a detail and cut off the entire top

2. rinse out your carton first - unless you particularly want a mango-fragranced wallet.

3. if you have more than one child, make more wallets, my kids loved the wallet and didn't want to share.

3. if your cartons are smaller then the Family Fun template, you can just fold and tape it to fit, that's what I did in the picture below.



Happy wallet-making everyone

All about chip wrapper purses

If you are looking for a challenging upcycling craft - you need to try making a chip wrapper purse!

The idea is to empty chip bags and upcycle them into a purse.  I didn't actually know this was possible until a couple of weeks ago.  Since then I have found that there are many people successfully creating these purses and not wanting to be left behind, I got right to it.

After 3-4 'working' days, this is where I'm up to:

What you need to start your own purse:

1. Superb instructions from Mylinda's Wrapper Purse Blog

2a. Empty potato chip bags (+/- magazine pages)

OR

2b. I used old out-of-date booklets from my company, there were stacks of them waiting to be thrown into the paper recycling.

3. Dental Floss and Nan's Floss-tying instructions OR another type of strong thread.

4. An old credit card.

5. A lot of patience and time.

Instructions:

Seriously, just go to Mylinda's Wrapper Purse Blog, her instructions and accompanying photos are great. However, for the initial folding instructions, I recommend fluffyland, as I found their photos easier to follow.

 As you may or may not know, I am a family doctor and I work full time.  When I get home, there are kids to take care of and housework to complete, which is why even a few minutes at the end of a day in my office need to be taken advantage of for folding and joining...

I took these photos to show off my good start, my first 10 links in 5 minutes.. I considered that a good start.

My next photos, convey, why it took me a few hours, just to link up the first circle.

Totally Wrong

Totally Right

I will admit, that after realising how long this was going to take me, I almost gave up on the purse dream and settled for a bracelet instead, but I don't like giving up. So by sharing this craft with you on my blog, I am inviting you to start your own wrapper purse, and share your progress with me, and I'm also commiting myself to finish the purse, one way or another. 

If, despite my encouragement, you still aren't ready to commit to making a purse, you can use Terracycle's youtube instruction video to make a wrapper bracelet.

Happy wrapper-crafting everyone.

Cinderalla and the upcycling fairy godmothers

Two years ago, a very crafty friend of mine, decided to make princess costumes for our 2 year old daughters.  Never satisfied by simple, this friend decided specifically to make Cinderella and Aurora dresses, and to do it without spending any money. 

2011 - Eliya as Cinderella

2012 - Chana as Cinderella

Aurora's dress



How to make an upcycled princess dress:

Step One:  She posted on our community e-mail group that she was looking for pink and blue fabrics, and collected a used pink bridesmaid dress, cream tablecloth, and blue curtains.

Step Two: We followed the guidelines from make it and love it.  When I say we, I mainly mean she... because although I did 'help', I stuck to pinning, unpinning and cutting threads.

Tips to upcycling used fabrics:

1.  Generally, we tried to use the seams that were already sewn in the curtains to our advantage, so that we had to do as little sewing as possible.
2.  The one aspect of the dress that I did do myself, was the cuffs for the sleeves, we used very flowy sleeves and I wanted a fitted cuff.  The blue fabric was originally a tab top curtain.  So I took the tabs, cut them and inserted a piece of elastic (the size of my daughter's wrist) and then sewed them closed again.
4.  The neckline was also upcycled, and we carefully folded blue ribbon for a finished neck.

After the Cinderella project, I got hooked on sewing.  I bought a sewing machine (well I convinced someone to buy it for me as a present) and decided on another upcycling project. 

Note:  I have very little sewing background, I did two years of sewing in high school on a basic level, but nothing more, so I'm not promising anything advanced here, just some encouragement that if I could do it, so can you.

I have been a bridesmaid at six weddings, and as much as I enjoyed the experiences and love the brides, I was left with six bridesmaid outfits that I had little use for.  Some I gave away, some I still hope to wear and one I decided was destined for upcycling.

After

Before

Here is how I did it:

1.  I don't own any dress patterns, so I traced a design from another of my daughter's dresses.

2.  I cut the the fabric of the skirt, keeping the original hem, thereby avoiding extra work.

3.  I used the lining of the skirt for the top half of the dress.

4.  I bought matching thread, buttons and special folding tape which is used for the neckline, armholes and I also used it to join the upper and lower parts of the dress.

5.  The buttonholes.

This is where I felt challenged, after watching my friend do the Cinderella zipper I knew there was no way I was trying that.  My sewing machine has a buttonhole feature, but after many many failed attempts I realised it wasn't as easy as the instructions claimed.  Even if I achieved, one good buttonhole, I would mess up the next one, and I needed three good buttonholes in a row.        And then I found craftstylish and tried handsewing buttonholes. - SUCCESSFULLY!

Happy upcycling everyone, please send me links/photos to your successful upcycling projects.