Completed jeans pocket purse with cell phone and pen inside and paintbrushes and ruler near by.

Upcycled Jeans Pocket Purse- fun and useful

Want to recycle your old jeans into a creative and useful Upcycled Jeans Pocket Purse? Upcycling denim is just the best!

You will decorate the pocket with fun hand painting and use a little simple machine sewing to make it uniquely your own design.

It is the perfect size to use as a crossbody cell phone purse (or cell phone pocket) so you won’t wonder where you laid your phone down anymore!

Jeans, pink scissors, acrylic paints, ruler, paintbrushes and pen.

Blue Jeans Baby- upcycle that pocket into a small denim purse!

The Upcycled Jeans Pocket Purse is also the perfect size for kids to carry. My grands loved this project.

So do you have an old pair of jeans around the house that you are wondering what to do with?

Being on the farm we have a stack of worn-out work jeans that I’ve saved to make into a jeans quilt. In the meantime I love using a few of them for projects like this! (I do hope to make another jean square quilt though!)

Cut out jeans pocket, a paper plate of acrylic paint swatches and other supplies.

How do I make a denim pocket purse?

So this project hardly needs directions. It is pretty straight forward.

Make sure the pair of jeans you plan to use are clean. That’s obvious, but you are going to be painting on them and want a clean surface.

Lay the jeans on the table and cut one of the back pockets off the jeans leaving an inch of fabric around the pocket. You will cut this off after you paint the pocket part.

Fold up a piece of paper or cut a piece of cardboard to slip inside the pocket. This will keep the paint from seeping into the inside of the pocket and through to the back layer of denim.

Get out a foam or paper plate to use as a palette for your paint.

Hand painting small details of flowers on jeans pocket.

Design for your blue jean pocket purse

I always find that it helps to draw some design ideas on a piece of scrap paper before just jumping in and painting. This organizes your thoughts and lets you change up the design if you don’t care for it or want to move it around.

You can draw this design onto the pocket with pencil if that is helpful. Once you start painting it is harder to make changes so I think you will be glad you did.

Completed painted detail on jeans pocket with blue paper inside pocket with supplies near by.

Paint your design with colors that pop on denim

With your design in mind you can choose the colors of acrylic craft paint you would like to use.

Place a nickel sized amount of each color of paint on your plate. You can add more if needed but you won’t need a lot of paint for this small project.

Use brushes that are smaller in size to paint on your design. Be sure to wash your brushes out in water well when changing paint colors.

I find it works well to paint in the design with the main colors. Then go back with other colors on top to add details.

You may need to wait a few minutes to let certain colors dry before adding more paint details.

Stop when you are happy with your design.

Hand cutting excess denim material off of decorated jeans pocket.

Sewing the strap of your Jeans Pocket Purse

Cut a one inch strap from denim

While the paint is drying you can cut out the strap for your Jeans Pocket Purse.

Cut a leg of your jeans open by cutting up one of the seams. Choose the seam that is the straightest.

Use a ruler to mark a one-inch-wide strip down the entire length of the jeans. Then cut this out.

Measure this strap to your body and see if it is long enough. If not, cut a second 1-inch-wide strip of denim.

Hand cutting strips of denim to use for straps.

Sew the strap together and zig-zag the edges

Go to the sewing machine and set it to a zig-zag stitch.

Overlap one end of one denim strap with one end of the second jeans strap. Stitch the two strips of fabric together by zigzagging 3-4 times over the overlapped part of the 1-inch-wide pieces.

Measure this length to your body. Is it long enough? Cut to length or add another 1-inch-wide strip if necessary.

Use a zig-zag stitch all around the edge of the long denim strap. One edge of the zigzag will be right on the edge of the fabric. This keeps it from unraveling.

Hand sewing straps on pocket purse using a sewing machine.

Sew the strap onto the jeans pocket purse

When the paint on the purse is dry, cut the extra 1 inch of denim off from around the pocket on the three sewn sides. But leave about ¾ inch of fabric on the top, open edge of the pocket.

Go to the sewing machine and zigzag this top edge of the denim so it doesn’t unravel.

Attach the strap to this top edge of denim above the pocket by zigzagging it on. Zigzag one end of the strap to the right side of this top edge of denim. Then zigzag the other end to the left side of the top edge of denim.

The strap should not twist but lay flat over your shoulder.

Extra touches- black line on the design

Note: On one of my purses I did use a black permanent marker and made a few black outlines on my design. I didn’t do that on the one featured in this post, so I wanted to mention the possibility of doing this if your design needs some black outlining.

Clip any extra threads and you are done!

Let's make another Upcycled Jeans Pocket Purse! OK?

Makes you want to make another one, doesn’t it? Well there is a second pocket on those jeans. Go ahead and make a second one for a gift! My second pocket had a brand name patch, so I painted more of a western scene on it.

With a shorter handle it could be hung on a hook and used for SO many things- cooking utensils, silverware, makeup brushes, craft supplies, or guest gifts. The list is endless!

Denim challenge!!

Challenge- What else can you make from the rest of the denim of these jeans? I hope to make several posts with several of my ideas. But I would love to hear your ideas!!

Completed jeans pocket purse with cell phone and pen inside.

Here’s links to a few other projects that use denim:

Enjoy!

If you try this craft, let me know! Go ahead and leave a comment, rate it, and tag a photo with #WelcometoNanas wherever you post.

Come join the fun at https://welcometonanas.com

How Do I Make an Upcycled Jeans Pocket Purse?

Shelly

Make recycled old jeans into a creative Jeans Pocket Purse! Use fun hand painting & simple machine sewing. Perfect crossbody cell phone purse.

Print Pin

Prep Time 10

Cook Time 30

Total Time 40

Type Sewing Craft

Cuisine Craft

Yield 1 jeans pocket purse

Equipment

Brushes of various sizes
Scissors
Sewing machine using a universal needle

Items Required

Pair of denim jeans to upcycle
Acrylic craft paints
OR Tulip fabric paints
Black permanent marker (optional)
Thread

Instructions

Lay the jeans on the table and cut one of the back pockets off the jeans leaving an inch of fabric around the pocket. You will cut this off after you paint the pocket part.
Fold up a piece of paper or cut a piece of cardboard to slip inside the pocket. This will keep the paint from seeping into the inside of the pocket and through to the back layer of denim.
Get out a foam or paper plate to use as a palette for your paint.
I always find that it helps to draw some design ideas on a piece of scrap paper before just jumping in and painting. This organizes your thoughts and lets you change up the design if you don’t care for it or want to move it around.
You can draw this design onto the pocket with pencil if that is helpful. Once you start painting it is harder to make changes so I think you will be glad you did.
With your design in mind you can choose the colors of paint you would like to use.
Place a nickel sized amount of each color of paint on your plate. You can add more if needed but you won’t need a lot of paint for this small project.
Use brushes that are smaller in size to paint on your design. Be sure to wash your brushes out in water well when changing paint colors.
While the paint is drying you can cut out the strap for your Jeans Pocket Purse.
Cut a leg of your jeans open by cutting up one of the seams. Choose the seam that is the straightest.
Use a ruler to mark a one-inch-wide strip down the entire length of the jeans. Then cut this out.
Measure this strap to your body and see if it is long enough. If not, cut a second 1-inch-wide strip of denim.
Go to the sewing machine and set it to a zig-zag stitch.
Overlap one end of one denim strap with one end of the second jeans strap. Stitch the two strips of fabric together by zigzagging 3-4 times over the overlapped part of the 1-inch-wide pieces.
Measure this length to your body. Is it long enough? Cut to length or add another 1-inch-wide strip if necessary.
Use a zig-zag stitch all around the edge of the long denim strap. One edge of the zigzag will be right on the edge of the fabric. This keeps it from unraveling.
When the paint on the purse is dry, cut the extra 1 inch of denim off from around the pocket on the three sewn sides. But leave about ¾ inch of fabric on the top, open edge of the pocket.
Go to the sewing machine and zigzag this top edge of the denim so it doesn’t unravel.
Attach the strap to this top edge of denim above the pocket by zigzagging it on. Zigzag one end of the strap to the right side of this top edge of denim. Then zigzag the other end to the left side of the top edge of denim.
The strap should not twist but lay flat over your shoulder.

Video

Notes