Repurposing Blue Jeans to Handbags

Not too long ago we had a visit from the little grands but as luck would have it, we had rain, lots of it for days. While one of the girls helped Grandpa build his race car in the garage, the other wanted to hang with Grandma. Keeping her entertained was challenging so we took a trip to the local thrift shop. I thought shopping for books and toys would help and that's where I spied a pair of blue jeans marked down to a quarter. I immediately thought of things to make from the jeans and bought them. 

We decided to make little handbags for the girls from the legs of the jeans.

We cut the legs off the jeans about 10 inches from the bottom. Using just the legs we turned the legs inside out, cut off the hems, and stitched across the narrow end and squared it off so it would have a flat bottom. We folded down the purse to the size we liked and added a rag rose and buttons for embellishments. 
For the handle we used the hems that we cut off earlier.

Rag rose and buttons on an embroidered bag.

Rag Rose and buttons.

Perfect size bags for little girls. 

Considering we used buttons on hand, scrap fabric for the roses, a whole twenty-five cents for the jeans we kept ourselves entertained for very little money and a little bit of time. The best part is we had 2 little happy girls with their stylish bags. 

Post by Eileen Patterson of GoofingOff Sewing.