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Cost
$ $ $ $ $
Difficulty
• • • • •
Time
3h30

Purse made from t-shirt and extra fabric
I used a tee shirt from a little kids section and about a half yard of fabric. The amount is changeable based on the size of the purse you want and material of the original shirt. Mine was a thiner material so I made an inner bag for it.

Posted by Stephanie T. from Rapid City, South Dakota, United States • Published
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  • Step 1

    First take the shirt and turn it inside out and sew the bottom edge together (or if it's a longer shirt and you want you can cut strips along the bottom and tie them together to seal the edge)

  • How to make a tote bag. Be Happy Purse - Step 2
    Step 2

    It's optional to leave the sleeves open or you can sew an edge around them. (or again cut strips and tie together - this is not my picture by the way, I don't have one of this step as I left my sleeves open)

  • Step 3

    To make the inner bag take a rectangle of fabric which folded in half is a little bigger then the size of the bag wanted and sewed together the seams and turn it right side out, then fold down the top edge and sewed it to make a prettier seam. DO NOT SEW IT CLOSED!

  • How to make a tote bag. Be Happy Purse - Step 4
    Step 4

    For the neck of the purse you can either do a strait shot with the bag and let the purse curve down it, or you can line up the two seams and sew them together. I did the former due to the stiff nature of the material I used for the bag and not wanting to bunch the shirt up to fit the bag.

  • Step 5

    For the strap take about 2-3 inches (depending on how thick of a strap you want) and fold it in half. Sew the edges together about a 1/8-1/4in from the edge (not the folded edge). Then pull the fabric through so the seam is on the inside.

  • How to make a tote bag. Be Happy Purse - Step 6
    Step 6

    On my strap I also choose to iron it flat after turning it inside out, and picked a fun sew pattern on my machine to do along one side.

  • Step 7

    You can either sew the ends of the strap together and then sew it to the bag, or just skip strait to sewing it to the bag.

  • Step 8

    Depending on the material used for the strap you may or my not need to sew a type of string to the strap to keep it from stretching too much when full.

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Comments

EVEnl
EVEnl · Leidschenveen, Zuid-Holland, NL · 319 projects
You turned the shirt into a very cute bag, thanks for sharing!
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