a family friend J on a recent trip introduced me to sugarboo & co, a home goods company, telling me that one of her friends really really wanted a canvas zip bag from here as a present. J also said she wanted this pouch, shown below, with this quote, but didn’t buy it.

the pouch is $16. it’s 9×7, quote on one side only, metal zip, leather pull tap, boxed corners, and canvas inside. do you know how ridiculously simple that it to make? let me tell you – it’s an hour or less type of project.

i decided to make her one. i got out my alphabet stamps and fabric ink and i stamped the quote. this took the longest amount of time, because stamping each individual letter is a little time consuming, but after that, making the pouch was a breeze. i already had a lot of this natural canvas in my stash leftover from my making backpack, and i lined the pouch with some blue green mosaic canvas i had bought on clearance at joann’s. i’m also a zipper hoarder so i already had a lot of metal zips. i didn’t have a 9 inch one though, which was a bit of a bummer, so i sized up and made her pouch 10×8 inches. i boxed the corners by cutting 0.75×0.75 inch squares out of the bottom of each piece. i used my new point turner to poke out the corners and voila! a lovely little pouch perfect for traveling and camping!

then, because i already had all the materials out, i went ahead and cut and stamped another pouch for myself. i absolutely love my butterfly stamp on this natural canvas fabric! and the quote is a good reminder for me too.

i think the cool thing about this pouch is that everything doesn’t have to be perfect. i used to make my pouches very precisely and use a rotary cutter and ruler to cut out all the pieces, but that is a very time consuming process. now, i just eyeball it because through all my years of experience, i’ve gotten really good at cutting straight lines. i also love the wrinkles on the canvas that i didn’t iron out and the lopsided stamping. i think that adds a lot of character and a vintage look to my bags that i really enjoy!