Old Bag Transformation

Hi Everyone,

I'm sure that many of you, like me, hate to throw anything away if you think it may come in handy for something crafty - like this old bag for example ...

I bought her in the spring for around a fiver, from our local supermarket. She's done good service as handbag, overnight holdall and shopping tote, but as you can see, the end is nigh! Rather than consign my faithful friend to the bin, I decided to deconstruct and repurpose her.

Here's what I ended up with ...

And here's how I did it ...

First of all, I dismantled the bag into its component parts ...

• Satin-style lining fabric in bright pink
• Woven material in black, pink and white 
• Two lengths of zipping
• Handful of pink fibres
• Two handle strips
• Piece of foam

Such a lot to play with! I started with the woven material, keeping a few pieces to use as layers in scrapbook pages and putting the rest through my Cuttlebug with a Tim Holtz Tattered Florals die and a Stampin' Up! butterflies die ...

These were layered together and embellished with buttons and twine to create pretty blooms.

Then I took some scraps of the woven material and cut them into rough circles to use as bases for some zippy flowers ...

Using my hot glue gun to adhere the zip to the base, working from the outside towards the centre in a spiral ...

These were finished with buttons, again adhered with the hot glue gun.

Next up was the foam, which I ran through the Cuttlebug with a Tim Holtz die to cut keys and keyholes.

I went to work on these with a selection of embossing powders, acrylic paints and inks ...

... to create some interesting embellishments for my scrapbook pages and other projects.

Finally, I experimented with the lining fabric ...

Cutting strips, fraying them and pulling some threads to gather them up, then adhering with hot glue to a scrap of the foam to form a flower shape ...

Another idea I tried out was to cut four circles of the lining fabric, bunch them together, hot glue to a scrap of foam, then blast with the heat gun until the "petals" started to crinkle - big fun!!!

Here's a closer look at all the goodies I ended up with ...

Heat-crinkled blooms top left and middle, frayed flower bottom right, a couple of zippy blossoms and the rest are tattered floral die cuts.

Here are a few more ...

Another fringed flower top left, and on the right a butterfly with the zip toggle for a body.

And some more ...

Some of the "rusty" keyholes cut from the foam, an inked and stamped foam butterfly with gilding flakes and a couple of embossed and stamped butterflies made with a technique I saw in this month's Scrap365 (which is now a supplement in Craft Stamper).

And finally ...

... some keys and a hinge made with the embossed, inked and painted foam and a butterfly embossed with black glitter powder and finished with a sticky gem.

I had so much fun with this and ended up with all these embellishments - and to think I nearly threw it all away!

What have you repurposed/upcycled for your crafty projects? I'd love to hear about it :o)

Thanks for popping in today, see you again soon.

Annie xxx