I’d liked the idea of making a wallet out of a empty bag of potato chips, but didn’t know how to use a sewing machine. I finally bought one off of Craigslist this winter and am figuring it out. A sewing machine unlocks some projects I’d long been curious about – this is one of them.
I followed the steps from this Instructables guide and it turned out pretty well! I would make this project again. It felt like it dragged on, my 10 year-old helper and I took our time, but if doing this again I could move much faster and complete it in an hour or two. I wonder what the durability of the wallet will be. I plan to use it, so will find out.
I love the concept of upcycling but so often it’s just wishful thinking. A children’s craft project claims to “upcycle” a yogurt tub into a pencil holder… (a) you only “need” one such pencil holder but might have a new tub every week, (b) that pencil holder is going in the garbage or recycling soon anyway. It might be a fun craft or art project, but it’s not upcycling. Better are projects like this balance bike made out of old carpets, where waste is transformed into a good that someone would pay for.
This wallet is legit upcycling, assuming it doesn’t fall to pieces immediately. It feels and looks better than a recycled wallet I once paid actual money for and seems durable.
In terms of how-to, I mostly followed the Instructable. Here’s what worked better & worse for me.
Improvements
Better bag selection: I used a bag of Hippeas, a brand of chickpea puffs. This was a giant bag from Costco. For a snack food bag, it’s thick, with a nice matte finish and pretty colors. Just ironing the bag flat, we were impressed by it as a material.
Design changes: I replaced the coin purse with more card pockets.
Ironing: use parchment paper between the iron and the chip bag. No need for waxed paper. I have ironed a lot of Perler bead creations and know how well parchment paper performs there.
Tweak as needed: I ended up trimming the sides of the inner pocket assembly before sewing it into the back, so that I had room to fold the sides of the back over. And I had good luck with fusing those back side flaps down in that last step, which the guide says might not work. I sewed the sides anyway but the fusing made that sewing easier. This is the challenge of every follow-the-instructions project, where you have to stop the rote execution of the steps and think about what each step’s purpose is and how the thing works.
Would do differently
Layout in advance: I ended up needing another bag of chips, which I could have avoided if I’d laid all the pieces out before I started cutting. Like making the most of a sheet of plywood. I think this applies whether using one giant bag like me or several bags like that guide.
Sewing: I’m new to using a sewing machine and struggled here. I think my thread tension was too loose? What it looked like was either the thread pulling out of the needle and me just pointlessly perforating the wallet, or lots of extra thread (on the bobbin side, I think) getting bunched up. I noticed this pattern and managed to get the worst of it on the inside of the wallet. You can see both defects above.
Also my seams are not straight. And my stitch length is short, despite setting the machine to 3 or 4 (longer stitches). Maybe that’s related to the bunched-up extra thread? Because I’d perforated my preferred lines for sewing, I sewed inside of those on my second attempt, which nearly made the wallet too small to hold dollar bills.
If you don’t sew, and have a friend who does, this could be a good project to ask for help. The sewing happens all at once and will take ten minutes or less for someone who knows what they’re doing. But if you are inexperienced, you can mangle the whole project at this last step. I used a “heavy duty” needle but next time would use one meant for leather, and maybe a different presser foot if that would help produce straight lines.
All in all, a nice project. Producing a useful artifact out of garbage feels like magic – it’s making something from nothing.