65 Brilliant Ideas for Upcycling your Scrap Fabric

If you are an avid Upcycler or a craft addict of any sort, chances are you have a bag, bucket or suitcase filled with scrap fabric from other projects.

If you need a little inspiration for what to do with all those excess fabric scraps you’ve come to the right place!

This is our bumper list of both scrap fabric projects for fabric remnants and trimmings be they large or small.

We’ve included both easy sewing projects and no-sew projects so you should have plenty of inspiration for how to use up, reuse and recycle all those leftover bits of fabric.

We’d love to hear your ideas too so leave us a comment or join us on Facebook for a chat.

Psst….this post has been fully updated since it was originally updated so you will now find even more Scrap Fabric Project ideas – enjoy!

Fabric Letters from Scrap Fabric

We love this idea of using your fabric scraps for alphabet letters.  

And there are so many ways to do it.  

Big scraps? Spell out your nephew, granddaughter or son’s name in cushy huggable letters.  

Don’t want to fork out on the soft toy filling? Stuff them with the rest of your scrap fabric…unless of course you want to save them for the projects below.  

If you’ve only got smaller scraps this idea still works. You can cut out and hem your letters and add a magnet to the back or make portable learning aids like the third picture above.

Add left over quilt batting or another layer of scrap fabric inside if you have enough.  Great gift for a teacher! We found this tutorial here.

Fabric Scrap Shoe Laces

This super simple idea can jazz up a pair of trainers or boots.

It basically involves measuring the current length of your laces and hemming your long fabric trimmings to the appropriate width and length.

You could even join together different pattens of fabric if you don’t have one piece long enough. Here is the short and sweet tutorial from Prima.

Pen/Pencil Holder from Scrap Fabric

This is a gorgeous idea if you truly do have scraps from every colour in the rainbow. Measure the width you need for your chosen pen, crayon, pencil or marker, cut your scraps with a bit fo seam allowance and sew together with a backing or top fabric to create the individual pen pouches. The whole thing can then be rolled up and tied together with a tie that could also be made of fabric remnants.

Scrap Fabric Owl Softies

These cute owl soft toys can be made in any number of colour combinations. These are a fast little gift to sew up for little kids. You can find the full tutorial as well as the free owl softie pattern templates here.

Luggage Tags from Pieces of Scrap Fabric

This one is a great scrap fabric upcycle project to give as a gift or sell at craft fairs or online.

Luggage tags are those sorts of things you don’t remember you need until you are heading to the airport and so it’s a great ‘they probably don’t have one already’ impulse gift.

Delicious Reads have a great tutorial for how to make them. And because they are so small you can use one type of fabric or several so you really can use every last scrap!

Scrap Fabric Baby Bibs

Do you have any babies in your life?

You can use your scraps to make them a sweet baby bib, it might end up looking too good to get food all over, but even if it gets kept for best, it will no doubt be passed down from generation to generation as a keepsake.

We found a great tutorial for the quilted patchwork version at Our Cozy Nest.

Precious Patterns did the fox one above and she sells the pattern for it here.

Scrap Fabric Bunting

Bunting is great for all manner of occasions from birthdays and celebrations to decorating a nursery or store front.

You can go completely random with your choice of scrap fabric like the second photo or pick a colour story like A Little Frayed or Bewley’s Bunting Emporium.

We have three tutorials to point you towards to make your own scrap fabric bunting.

One is from Bewley’s Bunting Emporium for their no sew festival scrap fabric bunting , the second is a similar technique – No Sew Rag Bunting and the last one is from E How all about how to make the pointed flag version.

Key Rings from Scrap Fabric

If there is a classic upcycle for scrap fabric this has to be the keyring.

You don’t need much fabric at all to make something unique and practical so you can use every last bit of fabric from your craft room floor.

We especially love the last photo from Labores de Tania of sweet little house shaped keyring that use teeny tiny bits of fabric for the doors and the roof.

You could do one for home, one for office and adapt it to a car shaped one for your car keys.

Great as an upcycled Christmas gift idea too!

The last image is one of our tutorials – it’s a beginners Quilt as You Go Keychain – a super fun way to use up your scraps and learn how to quilt on a mini scale!

We found another great tutorial for making fabric scrap keyrings from Craftiness is not optional.

You could adapt this method to all sorts of shapes and add these house or other type of applique as well.

Quilted Scrap Fabric Coasters

If you still have some mini scraps left after all your keychain creations why not try some cute quilted coasters.

These are another one that would make an excellent gift. Especially if you can find some meaningful fabric scraps that the recipient might recognise.

We found two useful tutorials for these.

One from Elise Blaha (the hexagon version above) and the other from Crafty Foxes for the four quarter circle design.

Wrapped Clothes Hangers

Want to improve the look and grip of your plain plastic or wire hangers?

Try wrapping them in scrap fabric strips.

Go colour coordinated or mix it up.

We have a tutorial all about how to use thin scrap fabric trimmings for this. And it’s no sew!

Scrap Fabric Wrapped Bracelets

Here is another scrap fabric wrapping project.

If you have old bangles sitting around in your jewellery box that you don’t wear anymore or have become discoloured, etc, you can try wrapping them in scrap fabric for a funky boho look.

This is one we really like so we’ve added our own tutorial here for you to try it out.

If you don’t have an actual bangle to try it with but you have some old leather cord then Thriftanista in the City has another way to do a very similar thing, also using scrap fabric but without the bangle base.

Scrap Fabric Bookmarks

This is actually a great project for anyone learning how to sew.

Lots of straight lines and not much risk factor! All you need is some scrap fabric, some interfacing or quilt batting and a sewing machine (or needle and thread).

You can embellish with ribbons and buttons or do a fun shape like the feather version by Bag Me Frankfurt above.

You can even use dissolvable embroidery stabiliser and turn all your tiny scrap fabric trimmings into a bookmark too!

A lovely one to gift to all the book lovers in your life.

Covered Beaded Necklaces

These fabric covered beaded necklace are popular again lately. They make great bold statement necklaces.

We’ve seen methods using cotton balls, wooden beads and faux pearls as the ‘bead’ bit underneath.

We’re not sure about the cotton ball method as these necklaces are best when they are big and chunky and bold and somehow we think that means they out to have the weight to them of the beads themselves.

The basic method is to sew a tube of fabric, pop in your beads one at a time, knotting in between.

This gets more complicated of course if you are using different bits of fabric in which case you might use another method.

We found this tutorial here from Sew Mama Sew that uses wooden beads and clear elastic bands.

We also found this one from So Sew Easy that shows you how to wrap a bead in an individual piece of fabric so you can use different patterns for each bead.

Scrap Fabric Decorated Cushion Covers

Unsurprisingly we were spoilt for choice in looking for examples of great uses of scrap fabric in cushion covers.

Using your scrap fabric this way is like an invitation to be creative.

Consider your cushion as your canvas and your scrap pieces as your paint and get artistic with it!

You can create a scene, apply initials or an inspirational quote or work with the shape of your scraps and let them guide you.

If you would rather follow a pattern but let the mixing and matching of fabric be your artistry we love, love, love the example above by Theresa Thread and her blog has a tutorial and pattern for how to make the gorgeous cushion above.

Scrap Fabric Lavender Pouches

This is a sweet little project that is both therapeutic to make and to receive as a gift.

You can create lovely lavender pouches and even scent them with other essential oils.

They make a great Christmas stocking stuffer or wedding favour. In fact the tutorial we found for you to try is from the Intimate Weddings blog.

These examples are all for squares, but you could easily adapt this to make pouches in whatever shape your recipient would appreciate, a heart, a fish, or even their initials.

These are great for using up lavender from your garden at the end of the season, but if you don’t have your own lavender patch you can easily purchase dried lavender for this project.

Scrap Fabric Pot Holders

As with any other scrap fabric project there is lots of room for creativity in these scrap fabric pot holder ideas.

We love the leave shaped ones and also the fabric strips one by Blooming Poppies. What if you combined the two ideas?

You can find a tutorial for the Purl Soho pocket pot holders above here. And you can find the tutorial for the fabric strips version at Blooming Poppies here.

The last photo are some pot holders made form upcycled men’s shirts.

Scrap Fabric Brooches

A scrap fabric brooch would make a lovely gift or you could make one for yourself to add a pop of colour to a tweed or wool blazer.

There are multiple ways to do it and the examples above demonstrate just how creative you can get with this.

If you like the white and blue flowers with the button centres check out the Easy Scrap Fabric Flowers Tutorial here.

If you like the wrapped flower look similar to The Swifties rose brooch above we found this tutorial from Miss Cherry Dolls.

If you like the teal coloured brooch, the amazing Vicky Myers has the tutorial on her blog here.

Baby Busy Book from Scrap Fabric

A busy book is sometimes called a quiet book or even a fidget blanket or fidget book. They are great for babies as well as people with dementia, or children with conditions that benefit from sensory toys such as ADHD and Autism.

These books are all about giving the user something to fiddle with and get engaged so you can use old shoe laces to make a shoe they can tie, or use different shapes and sizes of buttons to feel or cut out shapes and colours to follow a theme for each page.

There are lots of ideas for a busy or quiet book on the Quiet Book Blog.

Most of these use felt but it makes sense to us to use scrap fabric instead for the upcycle factor and as the patterns and colours are likely be prettier and possibly more engaging!

A brilliant gift for a new baby or a thoughtful and practical gift for an elderly relative.

We have a similar Baby Colour book idea tutorial of our own as well.

Scrappy Applique Patches on Clothing

Do you have a boring top that needs to be jazzed up? Why not refashion it by adding some modern scrap fabric applique?

We have this fab applique project tutorial with a free downloadable lighting bolt template for you to try.

Reverse Applique Patches for Visible Mending

You can use fabric scraps for mending clothing too.

Using reverse applique and some visible mending running stitch techniques (as well as some leftover scrap binding) these kid’s jeans went from torn and drafty to bright, fun and functional again!

Fabric Trimmings as Stuffing

If you are literally drowning in scrap fabric and you just can’t make something out of it all another option is to use it as stuffing or filler.

This footstool that was made from an upcycled plastic tub and a fabric remnant to cover it – was also filled with fabric scraps – the ugly ones, the seams off of cut up clothing and other bits that seeemed less usable than the rest.

The fabric scrap ‘stuffing’ added weight to the footstool and saved the scraps from the trash bin!

You could use the same kind scrap fabric stuffing for floor cushions, soft toys or even a no bean ‘bean bag’.

Share your Scrap Fabric Project Ideas

We hope you have found some great ideas to upcycle your scrap fabrics from this list.

We found so many ideas and we keep finding so many more that this article is constantly being updated – so be sure to pin it to your Scrap Fabric Board so you can return to these projects later!

Have you tried any of the ideas here? We’d love to see what you made. Leave us a comment below or join us on facebook for a chat and to share your upcycling projects.

If you liked it – Pin it!

Looking for even more ways to use up your scrap fabric? Try these articles:

• 14 Ways to Upcycle Fabric Scraps as Gifts for Kids
• DIY Necklace Pendant made from Upcycled Fabric Samples
• 18 Upcycled DIY Tote Bag Ideas for Beginners
• Moda Scrap Bag Review
• 9 Ways to make a Rag Rug you’ll want to try!
• 13 Scrap Fabric Friendly Sewing Patterns on Etsy
• What is Upcycling & What can you Upcycle?

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