Love to sew and need some creative, new ways to make money selling your sewing crafts? I was also wondering what makes the best project to sew and sell on Etsy, Ebay and other online outlets, and what were the hot items to sell at craft fairs this year. To find the best crafts to make and sell, I decided to scour Pinterest and also Etsy for some of the most popular ideas, and found some cool tutorials for awesome sewing crafts to make and sell. Inexpensive, not too difficult, and things most everyone needs or wants, these cool DIYs include awesome DIY gifts, creative home decor, kitchen accessories, fashionable bags and purses, plus a few adorable ideas for kids. Whether you are looking for projects for your church group, ideas for you and your friends to get together and make on weekends, or some new ideas for your late night sewing extravaganzas, these cool crafts and sewing tutorials should have you set with all kinds of new DIY ideas. Check out this list of 50 Sewing Projects to Make And Sell and let us know what you think.
DIY Sewing Projects to Make And Sell
[social_warfare]
1. Reversible Place Mats
If you are looking for a top seller in your Etsy shop, we think placemats and table decor are the way to go, especially with the holidays coming up. Try making these with two or three pretty fabrics and create the cutest custom placemats. Follow this easy sewing tutorial to learn how. Don’t forget to make a set of these for your home, either!
2. Retro Camper Makeup Bag
This one looks far harder than it actually is, which is exactly what you want on a craft fair table. Straight stitching, a fusible camper applique and a basic zipper, and I can finish one in an afternoon. The pattern is free. Here is my full tutorial.
3. Sew a Zipper Crossbody Purse
My teenage daughter found this cool sewing project. Easy and quick to make, this DIY zippered crossbody bag is one of my favorite sewing projects ever. When you want popular crafts to sell, this boho chic bag is definitely a trending item, so I highly recommend adding a few to your list of things to sew and sell.
Cool Crafts to Make and Sell
4. DIY Remote Organizer
Does everyone in your house lose the remote? This DIY remote caddy is the cutest most sensible, cheap sewing idea I’ve ever seen. It requires only minimal sewing skills and makes an excellent item for your Etsy shop or as perfect DIY Christmas presents. The video in the link has step by step instructions that are simple to follow. Try making a holder for your own TV remotes first. This DIY remote caddy will not disappoint, I highly recommend adding one to your list of DIY living room decor you want to make next! Make yourself a DIY media center while you’re at it and bring on the popcorn for movie night.
5. How To Sew An Oversized Sleep Mask
This DIY oversized sleep mask is a must for seasoned travelers or busy Moms. Most sleep masks are too small and let light in around the edges, defeating the purpose entirely. I found this simple pattern for an over-sized sleep mask – perfect to block the world out for a quick nap or while traveling! Its perfect to sell online in your Etsy shop or at a neighborhood craft fair as well. This is one of my favorite ideas for things to sell on Etsy. You can even turn this into a no sew project if you use Stitch Fix fabric glue instead of using a sewing machine and thread.
6. DIY Quilted Coasters
Sew this quick DIY idea with scrap fabric for an adorable quilted gift idea that is sure to sell out during the holidays, but works well as an idea you can sew and sell year-round. People love choosing from all of the different fabrics I offer when I make these DIY coasters, and they make the perfect gift for friends and stocking stuffer ideas. Cheap to make, you can profit from these since we know you probably have a ton of fabric scraps you’ve been saving. Now, you know what to do with them. Ready, set, go.
9. Double Sided Tissue Pouch Tutorial
A two-sided tissue holder pouch is perfect for cold and flu season. One side can hold a pack of tissues, the other side can hold a mini bottle of sanitizer and a lip gloss! I decided to make some little tissue pouches to put in the keeping in kids’ backpacks or a purse. They all like the single sized tissue packages, but they don’t always hold up well being tossed around in a bag with books and binders. These tissue pouches are super easy to make (under 15 minutes) and my version is double sided! The extra pocket is just the right size to hold a mini bottle of hand sanitizer and a lip gloss. Perfect to battle those germs at school or on the
10. Circle Zip Earbud Pouch Tutorial
I use a little zippered pouch to carry around my earbuds since they are the fancy microphone ones and I don’t want them to break or get tangled. If you are looking for some small, simple gift ideas, this is definitely simple to make and it’s a little more fun than the typical rectangular zippered pouch! I can see these as the perfect gift for teenage cousins or nieces or girlfriends or even teacher gifts. Fun, quick, and cute! It doesn’t take very much fabric so you could even use scraps! Sometimes I have the perfect fabric for something but I only have a fat quarter, or I want to make something extra with the leftovers from another project. This is perfect for that. You could even use 5″ charm squares! This is a very basic zippered pouch, so hopefully, some of you beginners will try making one! One of my top teen crafts for gifts, this project is nice for sewing beginners and teenagers.
11. Simple Zipper Pouch
A lined zip pouch is the workhorse of any craft fair table, because people will buy them in every fabric you can produce. This is the tutorial I send beginners to, and there is video if the zipper step makes you nervous. Polka Dot Chair has the free pattern.
12. Pot Holder Notepad Pocket
Every list of sewing crafts to make and sell needs something cheap with one seam, and this Dollar Store pot holder is my pick. You slide a pen down one side of the pocket, chalk a line beside it (leaving just enough room that the pen still comes and goes), then stitch from the top of the pocket to the bottom of the pot holder and backstitch both ends. Pop in a notepad, hang it from a magnet hook and the fridge has a memo board. It’s simple enough that the kids can make one for grandma or a teacher, and Crafty Journal has the step by step along with a whole lot more thrifty little ideas.
14. Reversible and Reusable Gift Bag Tutorial
Gift wrap you get to keep: a slouchy cream canvas tote with a blue-gray chevron on one side and coral on the other, and you flip it inside out depending on who’s getting it. A little wooden button and a thin loop keep it shut either way, and I’d call two looks from one bag a win, since it’s two photos for the listing. A handmade gift bag that gets reused is the kind of thing people remember a booth for. All the directions are on Then She Made, and it’s worth a wander through the rest while you’re there.
15. Neutral Denim, Linens and Chambrays Table Runner
Strips of denim, chambray and linen, sewn side by side in cream, oatmeal, peach, gray, charcoal and indigo. That’s the whole runner, and it looks like something out of a linen catalog. The fabrics are Robert Kaufman (Bradford Herringbone wovens and Essex yarn-dyed linen, if you want to match it exactly), and here’s the tip I’d steal: she lays her neutrals out in natural daylight before deciding anything, because shades this subtle are sneaky. Diary of a Quilter built it from her own runner tutorial, and quilting ideas are in no short supply over there.
16. Awesome Cable Cosy
The junk drawer called, and it wants this cable roll. Mint clouds on the outside, hot pink on the inside, bound in bright pink, with three white elastic straps across the middle holding a dozen cables, plug bricks and a purple charging cube in a neat row (yes, even the orange one you keep meaning to throw out). It rolls up small, so a dozen of them take up almost no room in a booth, and you’re going to want one for yourself before any of them sell. For the details, and plenty of other diy ideas, it’s Live It Love It Make It you want.
17. Credit Card Wallet
Somebody in your life carries a wallet’s worth of cards and uses two. The author made this little fold-over wallet for exactly that person, her husband, whose dive certification cards were piling up by the bed. It’s part of a beginner bag series, so the navy leather tab and brass snap are far easier than they look, and a busy woven stripe like this one hides pocket grime, which matters for something that’s going to get sat on. So Sew Easy gives away the pattern free, and there’s a whole series of first bags to work through after it.
18. Sew a Needlebook Lanyard
Hand stitchers, this one’s for you: a tiny needlebook on a ribbon lanyard, so you stop parking needles in your pants leg at the doctor’s office or the kids’ games. It takes a fat quarter each of two fabrics, a scrap of muslin for the needle pages, a yard of ribbon and a clasp, and it’s zigzag stitched all the way around in contrast thread with a tiny red heart button on the side, and that super cute button is the part that sells it. Anything this small and this useful to other sewists belongs at a craft fair. Sew McCool posted the complete supply list and instructions, with a lot more where this came from.
19. Pretty Floral Divided Tote
The divider is the whole idea here. It splits the bag down the middle so the beach towels never meet the sunscreen, or the farmers market haul stays sorted, and if a customer would rather have one big cavern, the instructions cover leaving it out. It finishes at 14 by 5 by 13 inches from a single yard each of outer and lining fabric, a friendly amount when you’re cutting several at once. Go get the free pattern from Thread Riding Hood and stay for the rest of their projects.
20. Hand Sanitizer Holder Tutorial
lemonsqueezyhome
21. Easy Diaper and Wipes Carrier
creativecapitalb
22. Ipad Stand Tutorial
//
It’s a beanbag with a job. A wedge of fabric stuffed with polyfill and weighted with a stone (yes, an actual stone) sits on a cardboard base, and your tablet leans into the groove and stays there. The fabric flower on the corner is folded scraps gathered around a self-covered button, and there’s a version cut from the leg of a pair of jeans if you’d rather not buy half a yard. Teresa Down Under supplies the templates, a video and every measurement, and the other tutorials there are well worth the click.
23. Fabric Koozies
I thought I had sewn every small useful thing there is, and then these koozies became the item I reach for most. They stitch up in minutes, they cost almost nothing in fabric, and buyers pick them up on impulse. Batch them in fun prints. My how to is here.
24. Hot and Cold Bags Tutorial
Hand warmer in the microwave, cold pack in the freezer, same little bag. Each one is two 5 inch squares of quilting cotton and two of flannel (the flannel is the smart part, it holds heat and cold longer), sewn right sides together with a 3/8 inch seam and a walking foot so four layers don’t creep. They were made for hoodie scarf pockets, but a heap of them in mixed prints looks fabulous in a bowl, and squares that small come out of whatever’s left in the stash, which puts them near the top of my sewing crafts to make and sell. You’ll want Bee In My Bonnet for the full instructions, and for a lot more cheerful little projects.
25. Hanging Beach Chair Caddy
If your beach bag is a black hole with the sunscreen at the bottom and your phone lost somewhere under a towel, this is the answer. Our free pattern makes a caddy that wraps right onto a folding chair so everything stays within reach. It sells beautifully all summer. Grab the pattern here.
26. DIY Insulated Beverage Holders (Koozies)
Bottle koozies, but make them floral: these wrap a glass bottle from the base right up to the shoulder, one in a big blue and white medallion print with lime accents and one in lime with little pink and coral flowers, and they look like they belong in a picnic basket rather than a gas station. I would put money on a stack of these leaving a craft fair table in pairs. Positively Splendid wrote up the insulated version, and there’s more to browse once you’re in.
27. Sleepover Pillowcase Tutorial
lemonsqueezyhome
28. Peek-a-Boo Toy Storage Bags
A drawstring bag with a clear vinyl window across the bottom, so a three year old can see the blocks are in there and put them back without dumping the lot on the floor. Half a yard of fabric, 30 inches of cord, a strip of vinyl under 30 gauge so it behaves under the presser foot, and some bias tape make one 14 by 15 inch bag, and a couple of them hanging from a hook shows off the idea at a glance. Parents will get it instantly, and that’s the best kind of product to be selling. Hey There, Home put the whole diy online, measurements and all, and there’s plenty more behind it.
29. Water Resistant Phone Pouch
Your phone does not want to meet the pool. This fold-over pouch in a cream suzani print of coral, teal and mustard medallions keeps it out of the splash zone, and it lies flat enough to slide into a beach bag next to the towel and the sunscreen. Summer stock for a booth needs exactly this, and Brassy Apple is the home of the water resistant version and the rest of their sewing.
30. DIY Notebook Tea Cloths
Those blue lines aren’t printed, they’re stitched, and that’s what makes this teacher gift feel handmade instead of gimmicky. You mark a soft linen towel at 1 inch intervals with a pencil and ruler, run each line in bright blue thread, hem it with no-sew hem tape folded twice and ironed so there’s no wrestling a rolled hem, then hand stitch the dashed red margin about 4 inches in with embroidery thread. It’s mostly straight lines, which is my favorite kind of line. Follow the walkthrough on Say Yes, where a whole back-to-school batch of ideas came with it.
31. Fruit Embroidered Tote Bag
Plain totes are cheap to buy in bulk, and a little embroidered fruit turns them into something people will pay boutique prices for. I finish mine off with pom poms. Strawberries and cherries move fastest for me. My full tutorial is waiting.
32. Pretty DIY Fabric Feathers Dishtowel
Nothing uses up 3 by 8 inch scraps like a feather. You iron fusible webbing onto the back of each scrap, cut out the feather shape, snip little notches down the sides so it reads as feathery, outline all five in dark contrast thread and finish the hem with a strip of floral, a run of lace and a row of hot pink pompoms (the pompoms are not optional in my opinion). A store-bought towel works if you’d rather skip hemming the linen, and five different prints on one towel is scrap busting at its most flattering. Flamingo Toes walks you through the whole thing and has lots more colorful ideas.
33. Polar Bear Tablet Case
I did not expect a patchwork bear to read as professional, but the woman who made this one carries it into client meetings, and it works. The bear is plaid, stripe, red and brown scraps stitched onto a flat cream canvas case, with three little white daisies across his face and a leather cord that wraps around and ties instead of a zipper. Appliqued animals are a good bet for a booth because you can change the face and the scraps and have a different case every time. Read the story and see the photos at Sincerely, Kinsey, and scroll on for more crafts.
34. DIY Fringed Kimono
Fringe is a trim, not a skill, and that’s the best news about this kimono. It’s short and worn open over a tank and jeans, pieced from navy panels of batik dots, teal and orange paisley and a mirrored medallion band, with long gold fringe swinging off the hem and the sleeves, so all the drama costs you is a trip down the notions aisle. Earnest Home Co gets the credit and the click for the details, along with more of their makes.
35. Drawstring Travel Bag
The bag says HOORAY FOR SUMMER, and I’m inclined to agree. It’s about a third of a yard of fabric and some ribbon, and the lettering is a free printable you trace on with a gold Zig Painty Marker (stick to a woven, a knit grabs the tip), which beats fussing with an iron-on transfer. It holds shoes, a swimsuit or the tangle of power cords in your carry-on, and it’s an easy sewing project by the author’s own description, so it’s a smart one to make in a stack. Both the printable and the instructions come from Sew DIY, along with plenty more simple makes.
37. Fabric Hearts
Sewing is genuinely therapeutic for me, and these hearts are what I make when I want the calm without the commitment. They use up scraps, they stitch up fast, and they sell as ornaments, bowl fillers or little Valentine bundles. Here is how I make mine.
38. DIY Reversible Fabric Storage Bin
What makes this bin stand up on its own is a yard of Pellon Decor-Bond fused to the back of every panel, outside and lining both. You cut two 18 by 24 inch rectangles from each fabric and two more from the Decor-Bond, iron it all together and end up with a box about 8.5 by 9 by 7 inches that flips fully reversible, so you roll the top edge down and let the lining show, black and white on black and white here, which I’d buy on sight. The author suggests it for a baby shower or housewarming gift, and a pair in matching prints would be hard to walk past. Visit Haberdashery Fun for the cutting plan and the full tutorial, and plan on staying a while.
39. Bandana Pillows
Bandana pillows are one of my favorite projects ever, and if you saw how many I have made you would believe me. They are not something you see in stores or in other people’s homes, which is exactly why they sell. Cheap to make, healthy margin. My tutorial is right this way.
40. Handmade Sock Dolls
Every one of these comes out with its own face and its own personality, which is why buyers pick them up for baby showers and birthdays. They take patience on the first go, I will not pretend otherwise, but by the third one you will be quick. Here is my walkthrough.
44. Pencil Case Tutorial
Zippers scare a lot of people, and this boxy little case is billed as one of the easiest ways to sew one. Superheroes on the outside, black and white stripes on the inside, a red zipper along the top, and it holds pencils, pens and even a pair of scissors. It runs on fabric scraps, and every parent at a school fundraiser table wants one that isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Crazy Little Projects makes the zipper step painless, and the rest of their beginner sewing ideas are just as friendly.
45. Study Pillow Sewing Pattern
Picture a teenager heading outside to study with a pillow, a stack of books, pens, a phone, headphones and snacks, then dropping the lot. That’s where this came from: a big flamingo print pocket across the bottom for the notebook and paperback, a little one for a pencil and a name appliqued on in gray script where the original says STUDY. Swapping in a name is exactly what sells one to a grandparent, and the pink piping all the way around is the difference between cushion and gift, with directions for getting it in neatly. The full pattern lives in Polka Dot Chair‘s book Project Teen, and the blog is where to read all about it and see lots more of her ideas.
46. Blanket Cape Tutorial
kollabora
47. Coffee Cozies
Coffee cozies are small, quick and made almost entirely from scraps, which is the best margin on this whole list. I sew a rainbow of prints and they go by the basketful. Reusable, useful, and most buyers take two. My instructions are here.
48. Zipper Book Clutch
Looks like a hardback from the spine, opens like a clutch from the top. It’s a nod to the Kate Spade book clutches, and the heavy gold zipper is deliberate, standing in for the gold clasp on the designer version with a lot less fuss. Cover them in gray wool, cream or a floral, stand a few spine-out on a shelf, and people will pick them up just to figure out what they are (which is half of selling anything). See Kate Sew shares the whole tutorial, and I could happily spend an afternoon in her archive.
49. Business Card Wallet
Under an hour, three 8 by 5 inch pieces and a snap. That’s a whole wallet, sized 4 1/2 by 3 1/4 inches for business cards, gift cards, loyalty cards or folded cash, with a layer of flannel through the middle because it makes the wallet sturdier and softer in the hand. The author actually suggests running off a batch from scraps for a craft stall, so as sewing crafts to make and sell go, this one comes with its own permission slip. A Spoonful of Sugar lays out every measurement and step, and there’s a lot more of that scrappy cleverness on the site.
50. DIY Outdoor Pillows
An outdoor pillow dies from the inside, so this post is really about the insert: three ways to make one, including stuffing it with the plastic shopping bags breeding under your sink (the source calls that one perfect and very inexpensive, and I call it the best use of a bag hoard I’ve heard of). The cover is an easy envelope style, so it slips off and goes in the wash without the insert. Bright citrus solids, dots and an ogee print like these are what make a set sell as a set. A Beautiful Mess spells out all three insert methods, with lots more diy to get lost in.
52. Easy to Make Back Tab Curtains
Hang the rod almost at the ceiling and a small bedroom window suddenly looks a good deal bigger, which is the trick these oatmeal linen panels are pulling. The tabs are on the back so the front stays clean, and you measure ceiling to floor with a slight puddle, then add six inches at the top for the detail that sits above the tabs. Because the room is small she cut just enough to frame the window and cover it, not yards of extra, and that restraint is what makes them look custom. Lia Griffith shows the measuring and the sewing, and has more beautiful projects than you could bookmark.
53. How to Make Reversible Table Runner
tealandlime
54. Sewn Drawstring Bag
I had so much fun with my own beach bag one summer that a kid sized version was inevitable. Simple seams, a hem casing and a drawstring, and shoppers snap these up for pool days, toys and travel. Crazy Little Projects has the pattern.
55. Sunbathing Companion
Beach bag or beach towel? Yes, and it’s a gray terry towel with two big patch pockets in a vintage orange and yellow floral, the terry running on into the handles, so you roll the whole thing up with the magazine, sunglasses and a book already inside and walk out the door with one hand free. Beach season inventory does not get much more useful than this. The original is Very Dark Horse‘s, and their other projects deserve a look too.
