Homemade Pencil Cases!

Lately my mum and I have been making our own pencil cases! We use material and zips that we find from the op-shops or use some that my grannys has, we buy the plastic to cover them from Lincraft which I think costs about $10 a metre and i design the front and maybe the back and then of course we sew it all together. 

These are great homemade gift ideas. We have used them for christmas presents, birthday presents and just made some for ourselves to use as pencil cases for school, making small ones for wallets, long ones for holding knitting, and they are great for holding hair ties or hair clips or even use as a phone case.

Now, in case any of you would like to try making one here's how we do it:-

1.First make sure you have everything you need to get started including- a zip, material, plastic covering, a sewing machine and pins.

 2.You can have as big of pencil case as you would like although it mostly depends on what size zip you have. So to cut the material to size (i recomend ironing it first to get all the crumples out but either way is fine), you can measure any length but the width must be the same as the zip.

3.Then once its cut to size you can start designing the front and back. I think its nice to personalise the pencil cases by putting the name of the person its for on the back but it still looks great without it.

4.Once you have designed it sew it on to the material you cut to size, making sure you leave enough space around the edges for seams when you sew it all together. Then pin the material to the plastic covering and cut around the edge.

5.Next do a zigzag stitch on your sewing machine around the outside of the plastic and material to hold them together.

6.Now comes the hardest part of all! This is where you have to sew the zip on and to do this you must have a zipper foot on your sewing machine which is made specially for sewing zips on. When you have attached the zipper foot fold the top of the front part of the case over and pin onto one side of the zip as close as possible to to the metal part. Then flip them over so that the material is facing up towards the the foot then sew along the zip and repeat for the other side.

7.Now last but not least turn it inside out and sew all around the edges, ( And so that you can turn it back the right way again pull the zip half way across so that it is partly open.) 

Well give it a try! It might take awhile to get a hang of but just give it a go and dont hold back!

Anyway I better go. See you next time!