Refashioned/Repurposed Zippered Case

Hello everyone! This craft will help you to refashion/repurpose an old cosmetic, plastic case. Many toiletry products are packaged in zippered, plastic cases that come in all shapes, sizes, and colors. Rather than allowing them to litter your environment, refashion them into stylish purse-wear!

Let’s get started!

Supplies you will need:

-1 Recycled plastic and zippered cosmetic case

-Felt Scraps

-Buttons, beads, bows, ribbons, rhinestones, sequins, or anything else you’d like to decorate with

-Fabric Scissors

-Embroidery thread or regular sewing thread in colors of your choice

-1 Sewing needle

-A hot glue gun

-1 Pen

-Craft glue

You may require adult assistance/supervision when handling the hot glue gun and/or the sewing needle.

Let’s get started!

Step 1: I decided to embellish my zippered pouch with a felt ice cream cone. From tan colored felt, I cut an isosceles triangle to be the ice cream cone shape. An isosceles triangle is one that has two congruent (equal) sides. As you can see below, the two congruent sides of the isosceles triangle are 2.4 inches long. However, the size of the ice cream cone shape will depend on the design you are creating as well as the size of your zippered pouch.

Step 2: Use a pen to lightly draw diagonal lines about 0.5 centimeters apart from one another.

Step 3: Embroider over the diagonal lines you sketched with embroidery/sewing thread in a color that contrasts the tan color of the ice cream cone shape.

Step 4: Following steps 2 and 3, create another set of diagonal lines to intersect the diagonal lines previously made.

Step 5: Sketch an ice cream scoop shape with a pen onto a piece of colored felt. Then, cut out the sketched shape with fabric scissors.

Step 7: Decorate the ice cream scoop shape with rhinestones, buttons, beads, etc. to resemble sprinkles and a cherry. When finished, attach the ice cream scoop to the ice cream cone with an extra tacky craft glue.

Step 8: Hot glue the completed ice cream cone to the plastic case. I added felt hearts, felt swirl shapes, and more rhinestones to further embellish my plastic case.

Step 9: If there is a logo on the opposite side of your plastic case, then you may want to cover it with more embellishments. I covered the logo on my plastic case with more felt hearts and one rhinestone.

Step 10: To make a tassel with three layers of different color fringe, cut three rectangular felt pieces in different colors. The size of these rectangular pieces will depend on how large you would like your tassel to be in ratio to the plastic case and the plastic case’s zipper.

Step 11: Cut a fringe on each felt strip with fabric scissors. Then, hot glue them together in a stack without applying hot glue to any of the fringe.

Step 12: Roll the stack of felt fringed rectangles into a tassel shape while applying hot glue to ensure that the tassel will not unroll. The top of the tassel should look like a tight spiral.

Step 13: Cut a small strip of felt. Hot glue both of its ends to the top of the tassel (the spiral) to form a loop.

Step 14: Cut a small piece of embroidery thread, and loop it through the felt loop that was attached to the top of the tassel. Be sure not to tie the ends of the embroidery thread together.