Instead of throwing your milk carton in the bin, you can turn it into a useful handlebar bag.

The carton is a decent size to hold your snacks, wallet, keys etc while you are cycling.

The idea is to insert a zip into one side of the carton and add velcro straps for attaching to the bike.

This works best with the type of carton that has corners folded over and glued down at the top and bottom - like chocomel.

The video above shows all the steps listed here.

Supplies

You will need

milk carton
zipper - 22cm long, or longer
some velcro
thread
glue - hot glue is best but can use any

Tools required are

sewing machine
scissors
sharp craft knife
needle nose pliers
hot glue gun (if using hot glue)

Step 1: Prepare the Carton

Drinking the milk will give you the strength you need for making this project :)

After that, wash out the carton.

Now you need to separate the carton into a rectangle.

Start by gently lifting up the corners that are glued down and use the craft knife to separate the joints in the cardboard. Try not to cut into the carton (like I did): take your time and cut carefully!

After this you will have a tube which can be cut along one side to produce a rectangle.

Step 2: Sew on Velcro Straps

In the video and the pictures, this step comes later, but it actually makes more sense to sew on the straps before attaching the zip. You could also sew on the straps after the zip - I think it's just a bit easier without the zip being in the way.

From the velcro tape cut off a 15cm piece - it's better to cut a longer piece now and trim it down at the end.

Stick one side of the velcro to the other one with an overlap of 3 or so cm. This will give you a strap of around 25cm length.

Sew this strap to one side of the milk carton. In the ideal case it would be perfectly aligned, but I just eyeballed it :)

Sew in a box around the joint of the two velcro pieces, like in the picture.

Repeat for the other strap. You'll want the distance between the straps to be about 16cm but depending on your bike a wider or narrower strap placement might be better.

Step 3: Attach Zip

To sew on the zip, first remove a strip of carton from the edge about 1-2cm wide. The exact amount will depend on how wide your zip is but don't worry it's not an exact science.

Here you want to make your zip fit between the two folds at each end of the carton, like in the first photo. I was lucky in that my zip already fitted perfectly. You might have to trim yours down a bit or extend it with a bit of fabric. To extend the zip place a piece of fabric with equal width to the zip against the end, sew it to the zip and fold it over, as shown in the second photo.

Sew the zip straight onto the outside of the carton, matching the end of the zip to the corner folds of the carton.

Next, separate the zip by prizing out the little meat stop at the end, needle nose pliers might be useful here. This allows you to slide the zip pull off and then sew the other piece of the zip to the other side of the carton.

Lastly, put the zip pull back on and replace the metal stop with the pliers.

Step 4: Side Seams

Remember when you cut open the top and bottom of the carton? Well, now you'll need to rejoin the carton here. I think you could use glue, but for me sewing is easier and stronger. Simply lay the carton flat and sew a seam along the top and bottom.

Step 5: Glue Down Corners

With the side seams closed, you can reform the carton into its original shape by folding the corners at the top and bottom down. To keep them folded use a dab of glue. Any glue should work - I used a hot glue gun.

Now your bag is ready to hit the road! I hope you enjoyed making it and you will share many happy miles together.