Wallet / Purse Made of Grass, Wood, Coke-labels and Tarp

I like special wallets a lot and it's also a nice present for friends! I chose different covers for each wallet. The step by step instructable is for the "wooden" wallet (lower right one). The basic steps are always the same, you can just choose a different cover if you like. I also made a "grass" cover, a "coca cola" cover and a "north face duffel bag alike" cover as you can see on the overview image.

This is my first instructable and I hope its reasonably understandable. Please tell me if something is not clear, i am happy to explain things differently or in more details.

Step 1:

First you need a piece for your cover. I bought this one in a do it yourself store, its actually a piece of linoleum-floor with wood optics. You cut out a piece of 38 x 13 cm (15 x 5 inches).  And then you remove the inner lining of the linoleum to make the cover of your wallet thin enough to sew.

Step 2:

Next, you sew a piece of fabric to the inside of the cover. Afterwards, you cut the overlaying fabric and you sew the soft side of a velcro onto the outside of the cover. I chose to place it a bit asymmetrically, because I think it looks a bit cooler that way :).

Step 3:

Now you can put the cover aside for a moment. Cut out a piece of thin cardbord with 17 x 13 cm (6.6 x 5 inches) and cover it with fabric (sew a thin piece of fabric onto both sides of the cardboard).

From that, at approximately you cut out a rectangular opening for the zipper. Get a small zipper and place it underneath the cardboard and sew the zipper onto the cardboard-farbric-thingy (the coin-part). After that, you can sew the scratchy part of the velcro onto this piece. Make sure its position is as asymmetric as on the cover. To check where the velcro pieces will meet, you can lay the new piece onto the cover as shown in the third image of this step.

Once you're done with that, you can sew the coin-part onto the cover. At the same time you can cover up the seam of the coin-part if you take a bias binding (bias tape) inbetween (see thrid image of this step).

Step 4:

Now you need to make the little pockets for credit cards. You can put the two pieces from before aside for a moment. Now you cut out 6 pieces of the same thin cardboard. All 6 pieces have a different size. I choose approximatly the following sizes. 

1. 13 x 10.5 cm  (5 x 4.1 inches)
2. 10.5 x 10.5 cm (4.1 x 4.1 inches)
3. 9 x 10.5 cm (3.5  x 4.1 inches)
4. 7.5 x 10.5 cm (3 x 4.1 inches)
5. 6 x 10.5 cm (2.4 x 4.1 inches)
6. 4.5 x 10.5 cm (1.8 x 4.1 inches)

The differences in height are difficult to be completely regularly, because of all the side seams and stuff around. So i usually dont measure it perfectly, but just cut it, so it looks regular when its placed onto the cover.

Cover all pieces with fabric. I chose alternative colors to cover the pieces, but you can do that however you like it. Once you have all pieces, you need to sew them together. Start with the largest one (number 1) and sew number 2 onto it. Make sure that you also sew "stoppers" (see third image in this step) for the credit cards, so the cards wont disappear in your pockets. 

Once all pockets are sewn together, you can sew a bias binding onto the right side of the pockets. That will be the entry for the paper money.

Step 5:

Place the pockets, onto the cover with the coin part. Make sure the velcro parts will meet, when the wallet is closed! Sew the coin-part above the zipper onto the wallet.

Then, sew a bias tape all around the borders of the wallet. Make sure this tape covers all the ugly seams on the inside and on the outside of the wallet. Now you're done! Of course you can add lots of cute details if you like!

The next step will focus on adjustments depending on the different covers you can choose.

Step 6:

Adjustments if you choose a different cover:

1. For the "noth-face-duffle-bag-look-alike" cover, i also sewed black bands onto the cover before I started with the coin piece and the card pockets.

2.Depending on the cover, i chose different zipper styles, for the zipper on the "noth-face-duffle-bag-look-alike" cover, i also put a little string around the zipper, so it looks more like "outdoor wear" :).

3. The coke wallet was made of coca-cola labels from PET-bottles. I placed them all on my desk and covered them with a sticky foil. this made it really easy to sew afterwards, since it was only consisting of one piece. On the coke-wallet i also placed a little fusible rocket, since the girl i gave the wallet to, really liked coke and rockets.

4. For the grass-cover i bought grass-carpet in a diy-store.