Cookie wrapper coin purse

I got back home from the bodega with my cookies, psyched to try out the Terracycle wallet project from the NatGeo site. I was curious to see how well the cookie wrappers would fuse together, but I was a little doubtful that it would form a decent fabric to make something I could actually use. I was pleasantly surprised!

I decided that I wanted to use the foil side out instead of showing the label, so I placed the wrappers in between two pieces of copy paper as the instructions said and carefully ironed on low. It fused together really fast!

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I'm not sure if the iron was too hot though, or if I left it on the paper too long, because the plastic crinkled up a bit. I went ahead and used the new "fabric" anyway. I cut off the messy edges and folded the fused fabric into an envelope shape. Since fusing was so easy I fused the whole bottom of the envelope together so I wouldn't have to worry about sewing it together.

I can't follow any pattern without at least changing something, and this was no exception. The instructions for the Terracycle wallet called for scotch tape and velcro, neither of which I had in the house, but I had thread and buttons, so I made due with that. I think the final product turned out pretty good for my first attempt at fusing wrappers.

When I wanted to put on the button, I quickly discovered that the fused fabric is not very easy to sew through. It's a bit easier if you poke the holes first with a pin. Since I was stitching so close to the edges I noticed that the plastic ripped a few times. I assume that this wouldn't be as big a problem with embroidery or if sewing with a machine, but I haven't tried either yet.

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The finished product looks nice and seems pretty durable. The best part is that I know that those two wrappers were put to a good use instead of going in the trash! (... and that I got a great excuse to eat more cookies!)