Did you know cardboard packaging that stores food and drink in refrigerators and freezers is interwoven with polyethylene to maintain its integrity in the moist environment? In most places, these boxes cannot be recycled and go straight to landfills. Check with your local waste management to see if you should be tossing your 6-packs in the recycle bin or the trash.

Mindy takes used beer packaging, preferably the non-corrugated 6-pack boxes, and turns them into functional accessories meant for daily use. All cardboard material is wrapped in (not laminated) clear vinyl fabric making it water-resistant, but not water-proof as the stitching breaks the seal. The other fabrics used are marine-grade vinyl. There is no leather used.

All patterns used are created by Mindy. She draws out her ideas on graph paper with a pencil and ruler. For popular pieces she creates templates that can be used hundreds of times. Everything is cut by hand and sewn with a household Singer sewing machine. No, she is not interested in your ideas of mass-cutting machinery. She is not interested in hiring out production help either. Mindy puts her passion and artistic eye into every piece and when the day comes that she can no longer do that Mindy’s Beer Gear will be no more.

If you think you have some unique beer packaging to donate to Mindy, send her an email. She has a collection of thousands of boxes in her garage, but there are always a few she is on the lookout for. She cannot and does not drink all the beer herself. She gets her boxes from bottle shops, breweries, customers, friends, and family. She wants them in used condition. She prefers the imperfections. Seeing the wear mark of the bottom of a can in the box material used to make a wallet evokes a smile knowing someone enjoyed a beer before that wallet could be made.

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