Handmade Brush Holder and the Process of Making!

Ta-dah! Upon the request of my boss at the children's art studio, I am finally done with this brush holder! I am so happy what i thought actually worked so I am going to share with you the process of making. 

[Note: it's a process of making and not a tutorial because this is the very first time I am making a brush holder, there's no measurement or pattern to follow, and most of the time I don't really know what's going to happen next. It's more like a exploration and making something new. So it will be a huge disappointment if I say it's a tutorial as I don't really have the steps ready >.<]

Well anyway! Let's start from the selection of cloth, I have chosen the oil cloth because it is waterproof and as the name says it's a brush holder, often kids have to keep their brushes before they can fully dry them. So it only makes sense to me that you have a waterproof one if not the holder will get wet. Sadly, these are all the oilcloth I have :/ so the color and pattern combination is a bit weird but it gets better after a while. Haha.

So, the materials you need. Pretty simple, cloth, hard cardboard, scissors, double sided tape, the 'handmade' stamp that I always like to put on my projects, velcro, ruler... of coz it includes other things like pencil, pen knife, sewing machine, thread and needle..

You start by dividing the hard cardboard into four equal parts and a good ruler and a sharp pen knife will make your life A LOT EASIER!! I love the ruler from Martha Steward, it makes drawing straight line, right angles, perpendicular lines so much easier and more accurate.

Then you cut the cloth based on the parameter of the 4 rectangles, leaving enough space for sewing.

The hippo cloth will be the back, green polka dot is inside, plain canvas cloth is first layer of the holder and blue polka dot is the second layer. The rough measurements are : 49cm x 38cm for hippo and green polka dot, 49cm x 15cm for canvas, 49cm x 19cm for blue polka dot. Actually you can do any size you like, based on the cardboard size you choose.

Then you arrange the cloth in sequence and you can sew the sides of green polka dot, canvas and blue polka dot. This is to secure the different layers so that it is easier to sew the pockets later.

This is how I sew the pockets. Because it is really difficult to draw on oilcloth and I do not want to dirty the cloth so I actually pasted a sheet of layout pad on it and I draw the lines on the layout pad, it's easy to see therefore easy to sew later. I use layout pad a lot for my graphic design class, it is a very light weight paper which is only 45g/m^2 (normal printing paper is about 80g). So it's very easy to tear off after you sew and it does not harm the sewing machine, haha. But I guess there is a specific kind of paper made for this purpose but oh well..

Very easy to tear off..

Time to add the hippo cloth in.

Pin them together and sew around it, leaving the bottom open to insert the cardboards.

Trim the sides so when you turn inside out you won't get bulky edges.

Ta-dah, it's almost done! Remember to add in the velcro scraps.

At this stage it's already a functional roll-up pencil case, but we are making a stand so there's more to it.

Insert the cardboard and align to the sides and corners. I used double-sided tape to stick them down as well.

You can machine stitch the bottom closure but I want to hide the seams so I did hand stitch and OMG oilcloth is superrrrrrrr hard to sew -.-

Stitch together like this... and...

PULL! (make sure your thread is strong, if not you pull and it will break)

So.. it's done!

2 layers so you can put more brushes :)

Anyway, this is my new iphone cover with the small cat lying there.. all for 9 bucks!! hohoho..

Thanks for reading and have a nice day :)