A fetching tea towel toiletry pouch will tame the wild bathroom instantly

You can never have too many organizational tools to help tame fast-growing bathroom clutter. Who’s to say that your expanding collection of makeup brushes and contouring sponges aren’t essentials? This tea towel pouch DIY not only corrals your toiletries, but it does so while looking great.

Soft zippered pouches like these are easy to find in the store, but most are plastic and definitely not designed with your bathroom’s color scheme in mind. This DIY allows you to customize your pouch to your taste while getting a better handle on taming toiletry mayhem. A group of three or four would look superb on an open shelf, whether they match or you choose a different pattern for each one. Consider spreading the wealth and making a few for friends. There’s no question they would jump at the chance to create a more ordered and visually pleasing bathroom or vanity area.

Materials
- Cutting mat
- Standard-sized 18” by 28” tea towel
- Fabric roller cutter
- Zipper with small teeth and coil width, 12” long
- Tabletop ironing board
- Iron
- Small bowl of straight pins
- Sewing machine
- Small cutting tool
- Tape measure for sewing
- Serger
- Ruler
- Marker
- Scissors

Instructions
1. Lay the tea towel, printed side down, on the cutting mat.

2. Trim about ½” off the towel's folded-over right short edge with the roller cutter.

3. Lay the zipper so it goes from the center of the cut towel edge to the middle of the towel.

4. Make a vertical cut right next to the left end of the zipper with the roller cutter, from bottom to top on the towel.

5. Put the trimmed half of the towel aside.

6. You will now have a rectangular piece of towel with the zipper sitting on it.

7. Put the cutting board aside, and set up the tabletop ironing board on your work surface.

8. Warm up your iron.

9. Place the cut towel pattern side down on the ironing board.

10. Fold the top and bottom shorter ends over about ¼” and press. Put the ironing board aside.

11. Lay the towel with the printed side facing down on your work surface.

12. Open your zipper and pin one half of the fabric that surrounds it to the bottom folded and pressed short edge of the towel.

13. Fold the top portion of the towel over so the printed side of the fabric is visible.

14. Pin the other portion of the fabric that surrounds the zipper to the other folded and pressed short edge of the towel.

15. Stitch the pinned sections of the zipper fabric to the ends of the towel.

16. Remove the pins.

17. Cut the thread with the cutting tool to release the towel from the sewing machine.

18. Turn the pouch inside out and lay it flat on the work surface with the zipper facing toward you and vertically oriented.

19. Measure the length between the outer long edge of the pouch and the edge of the fabric that surrounds the zipper, on either side of the zipper. Each will be about 3½”.

20. Pin each of the short ends of the pouch together.

21. Sew each of the pinned sections together and cut the thread with the cutting tool to release the fabric from the machine when you complete sewing the first set of ends and after you’re finished sewing the second set.

22. Serge both ends of the pouch.

23. Lay the pouch down horizontally on the work surface.

24. Measure a 1” square at each of the pouch’s corners and mark the squares with the marker.

25. Cut the squares out with the scissors.

26. Pin the edges of the openings you just cut together.

27. Sew each pinned corner opening closed. Separate the towel from the machine by cutting the thread with the cutting tool each time you sew a corner together.

28. Serge the corners.

29. Unzip the pouch and turn it inside out, so the printed fabric is the exterior of the pouch.

30. Fill your pouch with makeup, oral hygiene essentials, or your nail polish collection. It will add the prettiest of touches to your bathroom shelf.