Absolutely, positively time for a new wallet

Years ago, I tried to make a wal­let out of a Fedex Tyvek enve­lope, based on instruc­tions from the inau­gur­al issue of Ready­made mag­a­zine. I liked the idea of a super-slim wal­let that was (a) real­ly cheap with­out seem­ing (b) total­ly cheap­skate. The prob­lem was, as sim­ple as it seemed, mak­ing the thing involved a sewing machine, a device that is actu­al­ly some­what hard (not to men­tion scary) to use. So I gave up on the idea of hav­ing one until about a year and a half ago when I saw one for sale on Etsy for $5.

This is my Tyvek wal­let after 18 months of use. When I bought it, I fig­ured that it would last for a cou­ple of months before it fell apart, but I was pret­ty amazed at how well it held up with­out much out­side assis­tance oth­er than a cou­ple of lay­ers of pack­ing tape now and again.

As long as we're talk­ing about Fedex, here's the cool 70's Fedex logo, and one of those 80's ads with the fast-talk­ing busi­ness­man [YouTube]. Next up: a rel­a­tive­ly inex­pen­sive wal­let from All-Ett that uses sil­i­cone-coat­ed rip­stop nylon. Doesn't have the cool DIY look of the Fedex wal­let, but seems a lot more durable.UPDATE: Just got email from Ter­rence Kelle­man at Dynomighty Design, who designed a wal­let made from a thick­er, more durable grade of Tyvek and which is held togeth­er by glu­ing and fold­ing rather than stitch­ing. No sewing machines: bonus. Check out his demon­stra­tion [You Tube].