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

How Do I Make an Upcycled Jeans Pocket Purse?

Make recycled old jeans into a creative Jeans Pocket Purse!  Use fun hand painting & simple machine sewing. Perfect crossbody cell phone purse.
Prep Time10 minutes
Cook Time30 minutes
Total Time40 minutes
Course: Sewing Craft
Cuisine: Craft
Keyword: blue jean pocket purse, crossbody cell phone purse, denim pocket purse, jean pocket purse, learn to sew project, sewing craft, small denim purse
Servings: 1 jeans pocket purse
Author: Shelly
Cost: $1

Equipment

  • Brushes of various sizes
  • Scissors
  • Sewing machine using a universal needle

Ingredients

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

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.
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.