Green Home Improvement: DIY Coffee Sleeve

By Lauren Bjerk

We already know that travel mugs are the way to go when dealing with purchasing that cup of joe from the coffee shop, but for the days we forget it at home we can still reduce our paper usage by bringing our own coffee sleeve.

Unique and creative, by making your own reusable coffee sleeve, you not only are being economical and stylish, but you also never have to deal with burning your hands on those oh-so-hot paper cups.

Making your coffee sleeve is quick and easy, all you'll need is:

*A cardboard coffee sleeve

*A sewing machine or a needle and thread

*Recycled Material.

Steps:

1. Cut Pattern. Using the the cardboard coffee sleeve you picked up from a local coffee shop (and plan on recycling!), cut out the shape of the pattern on your recycled piece of material (I used a pair of shorts my puppy decided to destroy). Make sure you have enough material to cut the pattern out twice, as you will be sewing them together in the next step.

2. Pin. Now take your two pattern pieces, align the edges and pin them together using sewing pins.

3. Sew Edges. Either place your pinned together materials on your sewing machine and stitch, or just take a trusty needle and thread and sew by hand until the sleeve'd edges are completely sewn together.

4. Sew Into Sleeve and Add Flair. Take each end of the sleeve and sew them together, forming a circle shape, just like that of a traditional coffee sleeve. If it looks a tad dull, jazz it up by sewing on buttons or adding other frills to the edges.

5. Enjoy. Now that you have your very own, reusable sleeve, you can show off your handy work every where you go. When creating it, you can even sew two different pieces of recycled material together, to gain a versatile look. Pretty soon, people will be asking where you got such a creative cozy.

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