Ethnic Purse (DIY)

I love carrying bright colored handcrafted purses with me. I love potlis, stitched, embroidered or painted purses. There is so much we can do with purses and re-designing them. 

This blog post is about how to re-design a purse. (One of the many ideas).

A brief description: I used a pattu sari to create a new look for my mother's old purse.

So let's get right into it..

Things you will need:

1. An purse which you want to re-design

2. Fevicryl Fabric Glue 

3. A pair of sharp scissors

4. Pattu sari or some rich looking cloth material

Steps:

1. Take the purse and take rough measurements of it

2. Cut pieces of the pattu sari based on the size of the purse

3. Apply Fevicryl fabric glue to the purse and sides of the cloth and stick the cloth to the purse. For the main part of the purse use the part of the cloth that has less work on it.

4. Decorate the borders with pieces of pattu.  Repeat step 3 and stick the pattu to the purse.

 

5. You can add more designs based on your liking. Some of us like our purses to be simple while some of us like them a little more grand. Ultimately we decide and we design.

6. Keep the purse to dry for 24 hours in a place where it won't be touched or moved,

And yay! the purse is ready to be used!

DIY: My Own Travel Dairy

For those of us who love to travel, maintaining a Travel Dairy or a Travel Journal is a great idea! As for me, I haven't carried one during my previous trips but I do feel the need to keep one in my backpack in future.

Here in this blog post I'm showing you a creative way to design your journal or dairy. We do get readymade travel journals in supermarkets but there is a different beauty in creating something ourselves and then using it.

A little about Travel Dairies/ Journals....
A Travel Journal needn't have any elaborate articles about our trips but could have some of the main points or highlights we wish to keep in mind about our journey. We can include points like:
1. Areas of interest in the place we wish to visit
2. The details of the place which we visited
3. Cost details/ important contact numbers (hotels/ cabs/ tour guides etc.) which we wish to note down
And an array of other information.

So let's get creative and create a beautiful travel dairy, shall we?

Things you'll need:
1. A dairy or notebook (could be even an exercise book)
2. Some picture and word cuttings which you wish to include on the dairy cover
3. A pair of scissors
4. Fevicol
And some chai and creative inspiration.

Steps:
1. Cut out some pictures and letterings you wish to include in your travel dairy

2. Apply fevicol on the pictures and stick them to the cover of your notebook as you wish.

3. Add letterings or wordings as per your liking

4. Cut out some gift wrapping paper and stick it to the corner sides of the notebook to get some rich border

5. Cut out some flowers using color paper. Also some rectangular paper shapes for writing the words 'Travel Dairy'.  This is wholly optional.

6. Using sketch pen/ glitter pen write the words 'Travel Dairy'and your name on the color paper that you just stuck.

Use your creativity and modify the way your travel dairy will look!

DIY Rainbow Bag :)

What happens when a boring, old handbag receives a makeover? Well, it becomes bright and colorful. It almost feels like a new bag.  I tried this and re-designed one of my old bags. I used the collage technique to design the bag. It is a simple, easy and DIY way to re-create. So experiment, try it for yourself and re-create!!

What you will need:

1. An old bag

2. Cotton dupattas/ saris

3. Fevicryl Fabric Glue

4. Scissors

5. Iron 

6. Lots of creativity and chai

So the steps are as follows:

1. Find yourself an old bag which you want to change and re-design. I had an old blue jute bag which I had bought many years ago. I no longer use it. This is the bag i'm planning to re-create.

2. Take a few dupattas/ saris lying at home which are pretty but not used much.  Cut out some squares from the dupattas/ saris, and iron them to even the material out.

3. Based on your liking, apply the Fevicryl fabric glue to the four sides of the piece of dupatta and stick it to the bag randomly. Continue this step until the entire bag is covered with collage cloth.

4. You can also mark the edges of each cloth square with silver or golden glitter fabric pen to give it a more boho look.

5. Keep the bag to dry in a corner of your room for 24 hours -30 hours

And the bag is ready to accompany you on your next outing!! It will look stunning and new! 

Try and DIY !!

Make A Skirt Out Of An Old Kurta

We all have a few clothes which we really like but hardly ever use.  We think of wearing them some day but that day never comes.  These clothes silently sit in a corner of our almirah and take up unnecessary space.  I found one such Kurta as I was scanning through my almirah yesterday.  I was quite sure I'l never use it, but at the same time I really like it. So i came up with the idea of making something I'l wear using it ! Interesting na? I made a knee length skirt our of it and now I'l share the steps with you..

1. Open your almirah and scan for some Kurta which you want to use to create your skirt.

2. Decide the length of the skirt you want to create and draw a horizontal line using a chalk or crayon. This is the line over which we will cut the kurta.

3. Once we have drawn the line, cut the kurta over the line using a sharp pair of scissors.  It will look something like this this:

4. The lower half of the kurta will be our skirt. We still need to do some work around it. For this, take fabric glue (Fevicryl fabric glue) and stick the sides with each other to create the skirt. If we are not comfortable using fabric glue then we can stitch up the sides using needle and thread (either hand stitch or machine stitch).

5. For the waist line of the skirt, we can either place a button or hook or we can use a thread to tie it.

And yay!! Our skirt is ready!!

That was quite simple for those of us who like re-inventing our wardrobe ourselves!!