How Do I Make a Candy Wrapper Purse?

A candy wrapper purse offers a creative and practical way to recycle candy wrappers, magazine pages, and all kinds of other packaging into sturdy, colorful totes. It is called a candy wrapper purse because candy wrappers are small and easily folded into little shapes, though you can use any kind of paper to make one. Many people like to use newspaper or leftover wrapping paper. To make your very own candy wrapper purse, you have to cut the paper into rectangles, fold each rectangle into a little pin shape, and fit the pin shapes together. Once that’s finished, you simply have to join the pin shapes into chains.

Cutting the rectangles is possibly the most tedious part of making a candy wrapper purse. It involves snipping your chosen paper into strips about 1 inch (about 2 cm) wide and about 6 inches (about 12 cm) long. Fold each strip in half lengthwise, and then fold it in half width-wise. Open up the width-wise fold and fold both ends of the strip in toward the middle crease. Refold the center crease and look down at your shape. You should be holding a strip of paper that looks a little like a squished heart. This is called a pin shape.

Fold as many pin shapes as you can. When you’re done, pick up one of the pin shapes and hold it by the point of the heart. Pick up a second pin shape and hold it by the point as well. Slip the arms of the second pin shape down through the arms of the first pin shape. The point of the second pin should be seated at the top of the first. When the two shapes are joined together, they should create a pyramid point.

Join a third pin shape to the second, and a fourth to the third. Continue this way until you have a chain of pin shapes about as long as your arm. Bend the chain into a circle and stitch the ends of the chain together with a needle and thread. Make more circles this way. Stack the circles together and stitch them into a tube, adding one circle at a time.

When your candy wrapper purse looks like it is deep enough, pinch the bottom edges together and stitch them together as well. This creates the bottom of the purse. To add a strap, you may either hot glue or stitch a length of canvas to the top edges of the purse. The weaving done in each circle should create a very sturdy tote.