I’ve always wanted to make a purse with a painted wooden handle, and I finally got my chance!
I received some Cricut Vinyl as a contestant on Blog Wars last week. I received glittery pink and matte green cut in triangles, and a sheet of glittery black vinyl, and we were challenged to make something with it. So here’s how I made my Wooden Handle Mosaic Purse.
When I looked at the triangle shapes, I immediately thought of a mosaic, and that I wanted to make a tote out of them. Then I remembered two things in my stash…a plain white tote, and wooden handles that I bought for less than a buck on clearance. Yay! While I could have made a tote myself, this saved me a lot of time.
First I cut the top corners off the tote so there would be a top flap to fit around the wooden handle. I actually used the wooden handle itself as a template for the curve. (note: sorry for the yucky photo here. I was watching a Harry Potter marathon that I DVR’ed at the time. I also neglected to snap a photo of how I painted the handle for the same reason, but basically I used acrylic paint and used painters tape to make the triangles.)
Then for some contrast, I sewed some black bias tape on the edges. You can always just fold in the edge and sew it, but I thought the black bias tape would make it more modern and clean. It has been a while since I’ve sewed bias tape so I was happy to find this great tutorial by Smashed Peas and Carrots for help. So I sewed the bias tape onto the bag starting at the top edge of the flap and going around the edge that I cut, on sides.
When the handles were dry, I wrapped the top flap of the bag around and sewed it closed.
Here’s a quick tutorial on how to fuse the Cricut Vinyl onto the fabric. First, heat the surface of your fabric with the iron to warm it up, then get the vinyl ready. The vinyl comes with a shiny side and matte side. You will want to peel off the shiny side, and put the matte side down onto your surface. If you’re working with glitter vinyl, you’ll want glitter side up (and peel off the lining on the glitter). Note: at first, I cut triangles and then peeled off the shiny side. But it was easier to cut a little square of the vinyl, then peel off the shiny layer, then cut the triangles. Then you’re not peeling teeny tiny little triangles one at a time.
Then put a press cloth on top of the vinyl and your fabric…
…and press for 30 seconds or so.
There you go, all fused to the fabric.
For my bag, I slipped it onto the end of my ironing board…
…and I arranged triangles to form a 2-inch strip down the center. No need to over-think it! And following the directions, I fused the whole thing at once, lifting my iron every 30 seconds to make sure all the triangles received some heat.
All done. A very fun, modern and colorful purse. And it took no time at all because I used a premade tote, plus the vinyl is so easy to work with.
Thanks Provo Craft for providing the vinyl to try out, and thanks Jonie for hosting Blog Wars! I will not be moving on to the next round (as I’ve said to others, my pride says boohoo but my to-do list says woohoo!), but many thanks to those of you who voted for my project and best of luck to the remaining contestants!
