Upcycled Leather Jacket Backpack

I'm going to start this post off with an apology. Half of the pictures I took were taken with my phone's camera and they're not the best quality, so I'm sorry for that. Pretty much all of the "making of" shots were taken with my phone and then I went back afterwards with my nicer camera and got some better shots of the finished product. I'm planning on making another one of these for my little sister so I'll take some better pictures of that one. I've been seeing some really cute backpacks lately and I got bit with the bug to create. Most of the backpacks I saw that I liked were made of leather so I decided to take a page from my own book and use an old leather jacket from the thrift store. After searching far and wide for the perfect jacket, I finally snagged one from my local thrift store, along with two belts that I planned to use as the backpacks closures. I believe the cost for these three things was about $15 or $16.

I dug through my existing fabric and whatnot and was able to find fabric for the lining, some batting, some vinyl and a zipper for the inside pocket. Then I got to sketching what I wanted my bag to look like and after finalizing it I wrote myself a little shopping list, taped in some swatches of the leather jacket and liner fabric and went off to the store. I ended up just buying thread and grommets and just cannibalized some old unfinished purses for the swivel lobster clasps and D rings.

I don't have any pictures of the deconstruction of the jacket, but basically I seam ripped the inner seam of the sleeves, down the side of the jacket and cut the sleeves free of the body of the jacket. Sleeves are deceiving, they always have way more fabric than you would think. I ended up using both sleeves to construct the body of the backpack. For the front pocket I decided to utilize the already existing snap buttons from the front of the jacket. I cut out a section that had both sides of the buttons and sewed them onto the front of the bag. It ended up working out perfectly. When working with leather you can't just stick pins everywhere because the holes won't go away so my trick to keep things in the right spot when sewing was to tape it down with masking tape.

More unpictured steps: I wanted a special pocket for my laptop that would be easily accessible if I had the backpack closed all the way so I made a padded pocket with the liner fabric and some batting and used the jacket zipper as the closure. I reinforced the piece of leather I cut for the bottom with two layers of thick vinyl fabric I found stashed away in my fabric box. I then sewed up the body of the back and then sewed on the bottom, making sure to sew in the bottom of the straps as well. I cut, lined and sewed together the flap but didn't attach it to the bag just yet. I placed the flap over the bag to approximately where it would sit once sewed in and then started placing the cut belts onto the bag to see how the placement would go. I wanted to secure the belts onto the flap by sewing them on, however the leather of the belts was super thick and I didn't even want to attempt that with my poor sewing machine, so I grabbed one of my sharpest knives and began to skive the belts in the spots where I wanted to sew it. I thought this process was going to be quite hard and tedious, but it actually was really easy and kind of addictive.

To hide the stitches and the areas I had to skive, I cut small strips of leather, placed them over those areas and tacked them down on each side with some stitches. As you can see in the picture, I totally skived the leather in the wrong spot on each belt so one was sewed onto the flap higher than the other. That kind of sucks, but hey, it's handmade right? That proves it!

I didn't get any shots of constructing the inside, but I essentially just used the measurements of the outside of the bag and threw together a liner with that. Of course, I had to stick a zippered pocket in there as well. And a little leather "tag" with my logo on it, which probably could have been executed better, but this is what happens when you're impatient, you go with the first try and tell yourself. 'Eh, that's good enough.' And then you look back on it and wish you had tried more.

On the top of my liner I also sewed a strip of leather around the top because I wanted the main bag closure to be a drawstring with grommets and I thought having it go through leather rather than fabric would look and function better. There will be better pictures of this later on in this post.

I stuffed the inner fabric into the backpack and sandwiched the top flap and the upper strap loop between the outside leather and the inner leather and sewed it up nice and clean around the edge. From there I poked 8 holes around the top of the bag and hammered the grommets in place. I sewed up a thin piece of leather, threaded it through and sewed on a piece of leather to act as the stopper part of the drawstring.

I made the straps adjustable like normal backpack straps are but at the end I attached the swivel lobster clasps. Those then could be connected to the upper strap loop. Thinking about it afterwards, it doesn't really serve that much of a purpose, to be able to unclasp the straps from the backpack; I just thought it was a neat idea.

Anyway, from there I tried the thing on and realized the straps were kind of thin. They're maybe about an inch wide and I thought that with a full backpack they would totally cut into my shoulders and be uncomfortable, so I made little strap pads and slid them in place. Worked like a charm and then my bag was complete!

So from now on these will be the better quality pictures.

And here's the finished backpack! I love how the belt closure turned out. The little metal embellishment on the belt on the left is pretty cool too!

Here's the back, and in this photo you can more clearly see how the back straps connect to the top and you can also see how the strap pads look on each side.

Another feature on the back is the padded laptop pocket.

And here's an action shot with my laptop halfway in the bag. Ooo, exciting!

Here's a shot looking into the bag. If you look closely on the left next to my finger there is a tiny loop with another tiny swivel lobster clasp which I put in for one purpose, and that is to simply hold my headphones if I'm taking them with me.

Like so.

Here's another photo of the bag opened, but it's laying flat and there's no headphones in the shot so it's different enough.

Here you can see the lining fabric for the flap. I ended up reinforcing it with one layer of vinyl because I thought if I didn't then it would be weirdly floppy, so to keep that in place I quilted it together with the liner fabric. I used this opportunity to make a nice chevron type of pattern.

I used some of the leftover leather to make a big tassel because, why not? And I attached it to another swivel lobster clasp (man I just have those things everywhere) so that I could stick it wherever on the bag I want to. Unfortunately it's a silver clasp, not gold like everything else on the bag, but oh well. I was working with what I had at that point.

Here are some cool angled shots of the front and back of the backpack.

And to end this I shall throw in this photo of my dog, Hobbes, enjoying the backpack as much as I do! (Lookie there behind the pup! Yup, I still own those letter pillows I made a few years ago!)

And that's all folks! I hope you all like this backpack as much as I do. I plan on making another one of these backpacks and will be taking better pictures of the progress of it, so please stay tuned for that!

Upcycled Leather Jacket Purse

I've been craving a leather purse recently, but they're always too pricey for me, and I would feel too bad about buying a brand new leather purse when there are plenty of used leather things sitting at thrift stores just waiting for a new life.  While browsing through clothes at a Goodwill while I was out of town last week, I found a jacket that I was convinced would work perfectly for the type of bag I wanted to make.  My boyfriend thought it wouldn't be enough material, but he was wrong - he should know by now not to doubt me. :) So here is the jacket I bought.  A nice deep brown leather jacket.  $13.  Perfect. 

I've actually been lusting over a specific purse, so I thought to myself that it would be good to use that bag as a rough blueprint for the purse I was going to make.  Here is that purse:

The Lucky Brand Abbey Road messenger-type bag.  It's convertible.  You can use it as either a cross body bag or you could tuck the longer strap away and use it as a hand held bag with the smaller straps.

And it's $178.

So that was my mission, to make a similar bag with the jacket I got.

And I think I did a pretty damn good job of it for my first time working with leather this way.Front.  I used the existing pockets to my advantage.  You can never have too many pockets on your purse.The best part about making your own purse while using an inspiration is that you can put things where you want them.  In the original bag, the zipper was in the front and hidden by the folded over flaps, but I prefer the outer zipper to be on the back so it's more easily accessible to me.

Here's what it'd look like if I were to be holding it with the smaller straps.  I made the short straps just long enough so I could put it over my shoulder if I felt like it.  I believe the straps aren't long enough to do that with the original bag.Adjustable length straps.  Even though I'll probably only use one length every time I use it, at least I'll have the other option.And opened!  You can probably see some parts where I could have put it together better, but I wasn't sure how.  Example, the stitching along the top, on the lining.  It was to attach the top piece of leather with the straps.  It was kind of a "plan B" thing.  I originally wanted to attach it by folding the leather in and doing a nice top stitch across it, but I didn't cut the piece long enough and I didn't have enough left over to cut that shape again.  So thought I'd just leave it with the raw edge and do a nice decorative stitch over it so it wouldn't look too bad.  Good idea, not very good results.  My sewing machine didn't appreciate trying to do decorative stitches with thick-ish leather.  Oh well.  I just sucked it up and dealt with it.  I was getting too frustrated with it and didn't want to take it all out and try to redo it because it would poke too many holes in the leather and I was worried it would make it too weak there and possibly tear.Here's a close up of my little tag I made.  I have tags made out of ribbon, but I thought it wouldn't match the purse very well.  In the original bag they have their logo stamped out on leather.  Unfortunately, I don't own a leather stamping kit.  I decided to do the next best thing, which was to burn my name into the leather.  I don't know what happened to my wood burning tool, so I used my soldering iron to do this.  Very. Carefully.  You can't see it very well in this picture, but the letters are slightly recessed which makes it look very nice.  This is probably the part I'm most proud of.

And here's an action shot of it so you can see how big it is and where it sits on the body when worn.

Aside from a few little things, I love how it turned out.  I love that I was able to upcycle some leather and make a decent bag out of it, and I think I'm addicted now.  I'm already getting ready to make another upcycled leather bag for my boyfriend's mom.

That's hot. Seriously. Hot, fused plastic. Tote.

Man, I haven't posted in a loooong long time.. I had to brush the dust off of this thing before I started this post! Haha.  I apologize, I don't even have a real good reason, but I'll try to make it up to you with this post. I was trying to get myself out of this no crafting deal I had been having for a while by flipping through some of my old magazines for inspiration.. when I found just what I needed.

I saw this bag on the right, and I knew I had to make one.  That bag, from Keen Footwear is actually made from woven rice paper, but I decided to do mine with fused plastic.  I used a tutorial from the Etsy Labs on how to fuse the plastic bags.  After that I just made a basic tote.. with some woven details.  Here's what was created:

I apologize for the kind of crappy pictures, my nice camera is out of commision for the time being.  Anywho, that's the bag.

Here's the back of it.

Here's some detailing..

Some more details.

The insides.

The zipper..

I usually just kinda put in the zipper without thinking about it too much.. which resulted in some not-so-pretty zippers.. but I found this wonderful tutorial on how to install zippers so they look oh so pretty, so now I use it all the time!

And that's it!  I will probably be making more of these, it's a great way to recycle plastic bags.. You could also make some reuseable grocery totes with this technique.. I saw some that they were selling at target... way over-priced for me though, considering I can make some myself!

Makeup bag tutorial

Sorry I haven't posted in a long time! It's been a busy few days. It's also been a while since I've said I was going to do the makeup bag tutorial, so I put it together today! For all of you who don't remember, or who haven't seen, my first post was about a travel set that included a makeup bag.  I kinda had to wing it on the bag because I knew the style I wanted it to be, but I couldn't remember where I had seen a tutorial for it a long time ago.  I promised I'd make a tutorial for the makeup bag according to how I made it, so here it is! :)

All the pieces.

You'll need to cut two pieces of fabric this way. An outside fabric and an inside fabric. This is my outside fabric on the wrong side.

For the lining:

Fold it up where both 10 inch sides are touching, and sew up the little tabs along the white line.

Fold the hole so it sits flat like so. See what my fingers are holding? That's the part I had just sewed up.

Should look something like this.

Sew along this line.

Take one of the top flaps, line it up and sew in 1 1/4 inches in. Repeat on the other side.

Repeat these steps on the other side, and then repeat everything again for the outside of the bag. The only difference is that for the first step you take your thin strip of fabric* for the strap part, fold it in half, and sew it into the tab, where the ends of the strap stick out. ( Sorry, it's hard to describe this stuff sometimes :( ) I had to draw this step because I forgot to take a picture of this.

*For the strap, take a piece of fabric measuring 6 inches by 2 inches. Fold it in half, the hot dog way so the wrong side is facing out, and sew along the open side. Flip it inside out.

Here's the diagram of how you put the strap part in. This is the only difference for the outside of the bag.. everything else is just like how you sewed the liner together.

You should have the outside and the inside all sewed up. Here's mine sitting next to each other. You'll need to flip the outside part so the right side is out, but keep the liner with the wrong side on the outside.

Stick the liner on the inside. Now on to the zipper!

The zipper I got is 9 inches long. You can get any size zipper but you'll have to adjust the size of the length of the bag so it's 1 inch longer than the zipper size. Example: If you made a smaller bag, with a 7 inch zipper, instead of making it 10 inches long, it'd be 8 inches.

You don't have to do these two steps to the zipper, it's just habit for me.. I think it makes them look more finished.

Take a small piece of fabric and sew it along the line. Make sure to put the right side of the zipper so it's touching the right side of the fabric.

Here's how it looks when it's sewed up. (on the left) For the little tab to the left, I took a piece of fabric that was 3 inches by 4 inches, fold it hamburger style, (right sides touching) and sew up the two sides. Turn right side out. Stick the zipper into it and sew it up. Like so. It doesn't matter which way you do these two pieces. On this bag I did it so the tab was on the side where the foot sits when it's closed, but with my original bag, it's the other way around.

Sorry.. it's another crappy drawing.

Pin the zipper in place. Generally I make it so that the little tab from the zipper is on the side opposite of where the strap is. Sew up carefully.

Here it is with the zipper all sewed in. You can see where my sewing machine didn't like me at the bottom. You can see where I still have a pin at the other side of the bag.. I had to hand sew the ends to finish this one off. You might not have to.. I didn't have to for my first one, but ended up having to for this one because the zipper was slightly off.

And you should be done!

I'm giving this one to my sister. She desperately needed a makeup bag, haha. I hope I wasn't too confusing with this tutorial.. if anyone has any questions, please feel free to ask!

Oldie but goldie: Towel pool bag

Summer is approaching, so I thought I'd share a project I did a while back which would be used at the pool or beach. Basically it's a beach bag, but it's also a towel! It folds up into itself (much like a quillow) but it has handles that make it into a bag. You can throw in your sunscreen, flip flops and other goodies you'd bring to the beach and/or pool. Here's mine:

Like any cat owner knows, if you spread out something on the floor and then try to take pictures of it, they come and lay all over it. That's my cat, Ewok.

Here it is folded into itself.

Here's the other side.

Tutorial!!

You need a beach towel, and another towel. I don't think I had a regular towel.. I grabbed a towel that wasn't as large as a normal towel, but it was bigger than a washcloth. If anyone knows what it's called, please educate me! :)

Here's where you cut it up. I believe the strips 2 and three were about an inch and a half to two inches.

After everything is cut, stick the biggest piece, number 1 on top of the beach towel, with equal distances on each sides, and sew up the three sides that have the red zig zags on. Also, you may want to hem the two handle pieces at this point.

Attach the two handles wherever it's comfortable, and sew them up!

And your towel bag should be complete! to fold it into itself the "correct" way, flip it over so you can't see the other, smaller towel, fold up the two sides towards the center, and then fold up about the same size of the smaller towel from the bottom. When you get to the top, flip it inside out. (like a Popple, haha)

Sorry if my folding instructions aren't that great.. it's kind of hard to explain. You could just stuff it in without all the neat folding.. which is what I usually end up doing.

Now, you may say, "Hey, but after I get out of the water and towel myself off, my towel will be all wet! What about transporting my stuff back home?" Well, if you think about it, almost everything that you carry in your bag gets wet, from sunscreen to sunglasses, so as I see it, it doesn't matter if you throw those things into a wet bag. As long as you take everything out, unfold it and let it dry when you get home, it should be fine. :) For those of you who take magazines or anything else that would not fair well under moist circumstances, then I'm sorry, this craft may not be for you unfortunately :( But you can still make them for friends! :)