Sew: Quick & Easy Makeup Brush Roll {A Practical, Washable Way to Store Brushes For Travel}

I may not travel much but I often need to take my brushes out of the house. Sometimes I’m doing someone else’s makeup and sometimes I’m doing mine away from home. I’ve put time and money into curating a set of brushes that make me happy and I don’t want them smushed! I knew that my brushes on an outing soon, so I finally got on to this DIY project. My first instinct was to make something super pretty, with lots of patterns and colour. But I knew that I’d worry about getting makeup all over the pretty brush roll and so I probably wouldn’t use it. Yes, that’s how my crazy mind works. So, I started thinking about really functional fabrics. And what’s more functional than a white towel that you can bleach (as I point out in the book)? Blush, foundation, lipstick should wash right out. If not or In the car of black gel eyeliner, bleach it! You can even wipe your brush off on it if you need to.

This old white bath mat was just a perfect candidate for this project. Bath mats tend to be a bit more dense than a towel, which helps with structure and it’s an ideal size. The other bonus is that all the edges are finished, so this is a really quick and easy project. In fact you don’t even need much in the way of supplies for this either. You’ll just need the bath mat (or other towel), a bit less than a metre of white twill tape or grosgrain ribbon and thread!

To get started, lay out your brushes in the centre of the bath mat to figure out how far the bottom needs to flip up to form the brush pockets. Make sure you have enough mat at the top to fold over the brush head. Mark these points with pins. Now pin to mark where you will sew to form the brush pockets. It is helpful if you can mark around your actual brushes but you can guesstimate it too. Remove the brushes when your done.

Fold the ribbon in half and tuck the folded edge in to the first pocket and pin it in. We are ready to sew! My machine hates thickness/multiple layers. To make life easy, I switched to a denim needle and increased my stitch length from 2.5 to 3. It really helped, especially on the thick, finished edges.

Start by sewing down the edge without the twill tape. Sew down the edge of the brush pocket and then sew the divisions, using your marks as guide. Be sure to back stitching at the beginning and end of each seam. Sew down the edge where you have the twill tape tucked and sew over the area with the twill a couple of times, just to reinforce.

Add you brushes, roll them up and then tie it all up – voila! It may not be the prettiest brush roll but it’s really functional and only took about half an hour to make! I know I won’t feel guilty getting it covered in makeup. I’m in no way a makeup artist but I occasionally do a friends makeup and I think the white sends the message of clean. Although, my brushes are quite filthy in these pics! I just didn’t have time to wash them before I made the roll. You can be assured that they’ve had a good wash since, the usual method but with Beauty Blender brand solid, cleanser. And these brushes will get another wash before they get put in this roll and taken on an outing this weekend. I am so pleased that I finally got around to making a roll to carry them in. If you make this, I’d love to see pics! xxxx