Recycling Soda Bottles Into Bottle Purses.

One good way to prevent accumulation of plastic wastes in our ecosystem is to recycle them.

Where I live, carbonated drinks (soda) are very common, the plastic bottle of the drinks gets tossed into the trash can after consumption. The disposed bottles can and has been be recycled into various items, another one of such is this durable bottle purse.

In this instructables, you'd be learning how to make your own durable bottle purse from waste soda bottles, alongside of which you'd be helping keep the planet clean and safe.

Two soda bottles.

A zipper.

Sewing thread.

Sewing needle.

Scissors/blade/knife.

A ruler.

Paper tape.

A temporary marker.

A pen/pencil.

Glue.

Adult supervision.

To make our bottle purse, we need to cut out the required parts from the two soda bottles.

Take one of the soda bottles and cut away its label. Take a ruler and a temporary marker, measure about 17cm from the bottom of the bottle and mark it as shown in the 2nd picture.

NOTE: The length measured isn't a fixed value, you can choose a length of your choice but make sure it doesn't fall on the bottle shoulder (which is narrower than the body) or anywhere else that is not as wide as the bottom of the bottle. You also want to make sure it is long enough for your pen, markers, crayons or whatever you want to store in it (keep in mind that the cap of the purse adds to the length of the entire bottle purse).

Starting from the marked point, draw a circle round the bottle as shown in the 3rd picture with a temporary marker.

Take your scissors/blade/knife and cut the bottle nicely into two, the longer bottom part and the shorter upper side as shown in the 4th picture. Clean the ink away from the cut bottle. We will be using the longer bottle part for the container of our bottle purse.

Take the other bottle, using the temporary marker, mark a point at about 3cm away from the bottle base. Draw a circle round the bottle bottom from the point earlier marked.

Using the scissors/blade/knife, cut out the bottle bottom. This will serve as the cap from our bottle purse.

Remember we need to zip the cap to to container of our bottle purse.

To attach the zip to the cap and container we need to sew it onto the cap and container. Hot glue gun may bend thin bottles due to heat and glue may also begin to break off after some usage due to frequent zipping and unzipping actions. Sewing is a good option for durability.

We need to punch holes near the mouths of the cap and the container at first to make the sewing easier.

Take a paper tape, measure a width of 5mm and mark it out on one side of the tape, do the same for the other side, unroll the tape (long enough to wrap around the bottle cap and the container).

Using a ruler, rule out the marked dots on both sides. Cut them out i.e two long stripes of tape of width 5mm with a scissors. Take each of the two stripes and tape it round the mouth of the cap and container (4th picture). Tape it at about 3mm down the mouth of the cap and container.

Once done with that. Take a pen (I used a red pen), draw equally spaced vertical lines round the tape at the mouth out each ( i.e cap and container ). The smaller the gaps between each lines, the longer it takes to sew it and the better/neater/stronger it is.

Take a new needle (they are better than old needles at punching holes). Grab the bottom of the needle with a thick clothe (to enhance the grip) and punch holes at the top and bottom of each of the drawn lines (picture 6).

Remove the tape.

Take a needle, run a thread that is long enough to wrap round the mouth of the container about 8 times or longer through it, knot it leaving about 4cm excess thread below the knot. Get the zipper, the small size (the zipper I used wraps around the mouth of the container with an overlapping of about 4cm).

Zip up the zipper and start sewing the zipper to the mouth of the container through the holes earlier punched, make sure that the teeth of the zipper is just above the mouth of the container. Start sewing the zipper from the side with the slider head, also start sewing from inside to outside so that the thread (excess 4cm) at the bottom of the needle, below the knot, falls inside the container. Sew round the mouth until you get back to the point where you started, continue sewing it till the everlapping (excess length of the zipper) has been sewn onto the container.

From the point last sewn in the upper seam line, cross to the lower/2nd seam line, start sewing along this line round the container mouth. Knot and tie the excess thread inside the container. Cut the thread leaving some excess thread inside the container. In the 10th picture I unzipped the zipper to show the sewn arm and the other arm which is yet to be sewn to the cap.

Zip up the zipper, put the cap on the container with the zipper inside it. Start sewing (with a newly threaded needle) in like manner (you may unzip the zipper after first couple seams to make it easier) to the way container mouth was sewn with the zipper. Sew the first line, cross to the 2nd line and sew round. Knot and tie the excess thread inside the purse, cut the thread leaving some excess thread to the knot.

Take a quick drying glue (I'm using super glue) apply it to each of the knots inside the purse, let it dry, this ensures the tied knots don't untie after frequent use. After drying, cut off all excess threads from the knots.

Zip it up!

I gifted it out due to much plea just hours after making it, the recipient was much impressed with the concept (of turning soda bottles into purses).

Happy Making. Happy planet!