How to Make Candy Wrapper Bags

November 30, 2008 at 12:08 pm (ETHICAL FASHION, FAIR TRADE, GREEN BUSINESS CONSIDERATIONS, HANDBAGS)

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,


Candy wrapper handbags are increasingly popular–with their bright colors, high quality designs, and very appealing eco-friendly characteristics.

While some are made locally in the US, most come from overseas including parts of Mexico, the Philippines, Indonesia and elsewhere. The two I am most familiar with are Nahui Ollin and Ecoist. Both of these companies are fair trade and work closely with local indigenous populations to make hand woven, high quality designer bags. Each company fairly employs local workers, supporting them to weave while also providing greater access to education and health care. Ecoist even plants a tree for every bag purchase. All wrappers used are diverted from landfills and/or incinerators directly at factories, which makes them attractive environmentally but also from a consumer point of view since there will be no chocolate or cookie crumbs found in any of the bags.


Despite what some internet bloggers may suggest, these bags are not easy to make. They may be fun to make, but not super fast. The techniques used to weave these bags are similar to what many of us did growing up– making necklace chains and other adornments out of Juicy Fruit wrappers and other gum wrappers. However, while making gum chains is a piece of pie, as you will soon see, making entire designer purses out of candy wrappers is a much more challenging feat. This is why many interested parties rely on skilled artisans to do this intensive work. Triple bottom line companies seems to be the newest and hottest trend in retail: helping the environment, helping communities and artisans worldwide, while also being very stylish, modern.

Nahui Ollin bags for example, are woven inside and out and contain no other materials other than the buckles and handles (which are also recycled) aside from the candy wrappers. Even the smallest bags (coin purses) contain approximately 150 wrappers. Zippers and other attachments are all hand-sewn (not glued) adding more handi-work  to each piece. Probably the easiest way to make a handle is to wrap two candy wrapper “threads” together and make a handle but this is also perhaps the least stylish way to finish the bag.

We’d like to share with you some resources we found on the web about how to make these purses out of candy wrappers so that those inspired can try it at home—or if you have more information to share to the discussion, please chime in!

Mylinda has kindly gone into great detail on her blog with instructions on how to make the bags – step by step (thank you Mylinda! Your bags are great!):
In addition, we can see a Nahui Ollin professional weaving in action through this short, light hearted video on You Tube:

Tell us about your experience in making candy wrapper bags.

  • Share/Bookmark

10 Comments

  1. Carol said,

    December 2, 2008 at 2:51 pm

    I just posted about making a gum wrapper chain purse yesterday!

    http://extremecards.blogspot.com/2008/12/gum-wrapper-chain-purse.html

  2. admin said,

    December 2, 2008 at 3:25 pm

    Hi Carol, thanks for sharing your post. I think it is very cool what you are doing with the chains– and gosh I wonder what candies are on those chains? Nice way to be green year after year. Happy Holidays to you and enjoy your candy wrapper tree!

  3. Carol said,

    December 2, 2008 at 9:24 pm

    On my chain it’s all gum wrappers. I used magazine covers for the bags, but I think plastic coated chip bags would work better.

  4. design hive: buy local | Transient Travels said,

    December 21, 2008 at 4:56 pm

    [...] and also on founder Shana Yansen’s blogs Jute & Jackfruit blog & Green Cotton. The Candy Wrapper Bags were my absolute favorite -  they are handmade using Mayan weaving techniques by indigenous men [...]

  5. Laura said,

    January 18, 2009 at 6:08 pm

    This comment in no way is to say that the bags I have seen for purchase are not absolutely stunning and innovative. However, I live in California and through the famous “friend of a friend, actually of a friend” story, know that many inmates make bags, purses, and coin type purses that look virtually the same and it is quite surprising to see that possibly a craft that has been practiced for quite some time within our prison system has now gone mainstream/designer. Too bad these inmate produced items can’t be sold since CA is facing huge budget issues due to the high inmate population and it would be great to divert tax money elsewhere if the incarcerated could bring in some funds through their craftsmanship! Once again, I mean no offense by this comment to any designers/producers of these items; I was merely shocked to see the prices of these purses and the striking similarities to what is seemingly nothing new to a particular, isolated population.

  6. admin said,

    January 19, 2009 at 8:41 pm

    Thanks for your comment! I think the idea of prisoners making these (or similar bags) is great. There are plenty of examples worldwide of prisoners (and prisons) taking a lead in creating income generating opportunities. I was just down in Belize earlier this year for example and there is a very famous prison there which has an income generation program for prisoners along with a gift store open to the public. While it requires the leadership of the prison administration coupled with political will/public backing for something like this to take place, when it does occur it can be a win-win situation. I wish there were more of them that did this.

  7. claudia said,

    February 7, 2009 at 1:20 pm

    does someone know how to make the ending of the purse square instead of zigzag??

  8. i'm not one to wear fancy jewelry | transient travels said,

    March 10, 2009 at 4:14 am

    [...] Fox. I bought a very pretty ring for about 5 dollars from a local artist and I got a beautiful candy wrapper bag as a gift for my sister which was very reasonable. Since this experience, my eyes glaze over the [...]

  9. How to Make a Candy Wrapper Purse said,

    August 10, 2009 at 8:43 pm

    Yeah, I remember seeing a site a while back somewhere that showed pictures of prisoners making purses, picture frames, boxes, etc. Don’t remember where it was though. Kind weird/cool seeing this “rough & tumble” guys making these intricate purses. haha Seem like most of em were using cigarette packs, etc to make them. Just imagine how many packs it’d take to make one… wow!

  10. gabriela said,

    November 10, 2009 at 6:53 pm

    how do u make that stuff

Post a Comment