Makeup Brush Roll Tutorial

I wanted to make my Mom a set of travel bags which would include a shoe pouch, zippered bag, and makeup brush roll. I’ll post about them all eventually, but for now here’s the makeup brush roll.

Mom and I are bareMinerals ladies which means we have a brush for everything.  Most make up brush rolls seem to have spaces for tons of brushes.  And while on a low makeup day I may just use two brushes, traveling I’d take five or so (as would Mom).  So I  decided to make one that would fit this need.  I found this tutorial on making a paintbrush roll so I just modified it. Make sure you read through my whole tutorial first; I have a part at the bottom that discusses what I’d do differently the next time I make one.

Supplies

1 outside fabric (white peacock feather) 15″ wide x 16″ high

1 lining fabric (blue peacock feather) 15″ wide x 16″ high

ribbon (these photos show 20″ of ribbon)

1/2″ seam allowance

1.  Place the lining right side up. Fold ribbon in half.  Line up the ribbon fold 7″ from the bottom of the lining on the left side and pin in place.  You will use the ribbon to tie the roll.  Place the outside fabric (right side down) on top of the lining and pin in place.  Sew around the outside leaving a few inches on the side for turning.  This space will get closed up when you top stitch. See the photo below to see about placing the ribbon.

2. After you are finishing sewing clip the corners and turn right side out.  Press.  You should have something that looks like this.  Remember the blue peacock feather fabric is my lining.

3. Fold up 4″ of fabric from the bottom.  This is going to be your pouch for your makeup brushes (so your pouch is 4″ deep).  Top stitch all around the outside of the bag.  The space you had for turning should get closed when you top stitch, assuming your space was not at the bottom of your fabric.  The top stitch is how you are securing the folded portion (pouch) as well, so go ahead and back stitch to secure that in place.  I back stitched right where the top of the pouch (white fabric) met the lining (blue fabric) just to reinforce it.  You may also want to back stitch over where the ribbon is, but at this point it’s already been sewn once in step one and then you’ve sewn over that again in your top stitching.  If you plan on swinging the bag around by the ribbon you may want to back stitch though.  The first photo shows the fabric folded from the bottom and the second photo shows the finished top stitching and a bonus make up brush.

4.  Now it’s time to sew the individual holders for your brushes.  I started at the top stitch as you can see in these two photos.  I didn’t want the stitch for the brush holder to go below that top stitch line .  Measure out your individual brush holders and do a straight stitch up to the end of the pouch.  I did not stitch all the way to the top like the paint brush tutorial I referenced earlier.  Aesthetically I like this better.  For width I did a few 2″ holders (these fit the bareMinerals foundation brushes very well), a few 1.5″ holders, and a few 1″ holders.  The 1″ ones were good for eyeshadow brushes and would also fit eye liner.  I staggered the distances, meaning I didn’t start at 2″ and then go down to an 1″; I varied the width across the bag.  You can see this in the photo in number 5.

5. So here’s the finished product complete with brushes.  At this point you can do a decorative cut on the end of the ribbon and hit it with some no-fray.

6. To secure the make up brush roll fold down the top like the first photo, roll it up from the right and tie it closed with your ribbon!

 

Reflection

Overall this took me just about an hour to make.  I was pleased how it turned out, but I would make some changes:

1. Ribbon length: I cut 20″ thinking that would be enough but it wasn’t.  If you are working with this length of fabric cut 36-40″ just to be safe.  You don’t want to have to rip the ribbon out at the end like I did.

2. Fabric height: For bareMinerals brushes I would add 4″ to the height of the fabric.  The next one of these I’d make I would do my top stitching but then I would also fold the top part down and do a stitch close to the fold so that top flap has a natural fold line.  I wasn’t able to do this because the fabric wasn’t quite tall enough.  I’m not explaining it very well but if you look at the tutorial I referenced earlier that person used a separate piece of fabric for her top flap.  Basically putting a stitch up there would serve a similar purpose.  If you have super tall brushes you may need to make it even taller.

If I get around to making another one I’ll be sure to post it.