Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Making a New Wallet and Coin Purse

I've been wanting a new colorful wallet for a long time.  Brown leather is just not me.  :)  I looked and looked for one to buy but they were all either really big or really boring or really expensive. So I told myself, "Self, there are so many cool tutorials on the internet, you should be able to find one for a wallet you could sew out of fun fabric!"
After way too many a few hours of searching, I found this great tutorial from Modest Maven that looked like it would be almost exactly what I wanted.  The only problem was that it only had 6 slots for cards.  Well...I have a lot more cards than that.  For heaven's sake, I have two library cards!  So I decided that I would do a slight modification to the wallet to give me more card slots.  This is what I came up with.
Hah!  Nothing boring about these colors, huh?

I added a center section with more card slots.


Here's a better view of the inside.  There are 6 card slots on this side of the wallet and six more on the other side.  There's a pocket for bills along the top edge too.

Of course, once I finished sewing it, I started to move everything from my old wallet to my new one and hmmm...I still had too many cards for all the slots.  Everyone wants you to have their store loyalty card and since I'm cheap I like to save money, sometimes I don't say no.  :)
After many hours of pondering and looking online, I came up with an idea of an accordian pocket that I could sew right in the center of the wallet to store some of the extra cards I didn't have room for.  Out came the seam ripper so I could take the center section out and remake it with the pocket.  A little cutting, a little sewing, a little straining of brain matter, and after an hour or so here's what I had.


The only thing I didn't do was put in a little zippered pocket for change.  I decided it might be better to have a separate coin purse so the wallet didn't burst its seams.  :)

Later the same night, I decided to make said coin purse but got distracted when I did a search for coin purse tutorials.  I found this tutorial on CraftPassion for a really, really cool coin purse made with a zipper and ribbon.  Of course, I had to make it!  After all, we needed something to hold coins in the car too.  :)  What do you think?

Unzipped...

Zipped!  Isn't it cute?

I love projects like these!  They're quick and lots of fun to make.  My only problem is that I want to make a lot more--there are SO many cool tutorials online now!  I'm constantly amazed at the brilliance and creativity of people's brains.  :)

2 comments:

Cindy said...

Ok, that wallet is great (love the fabrics!) but that ribbon zipper coin purse is way adorable!!! I love it. Now I want to try one. :)

Vonnie said...

I bet the wallet is as cute in person as the coin purse. Great!