Lilac Altered Handbag

Before the "incident" (lol)

Made the deadline... with this finished piece

Altered artwear, at times can be a simple thing.... and other times not.

A local artwear group to which I belong, issued a recycled-artwear challenge a little more than a year ago, and with great gusto, I jumped right in.

I had the piece in mind, and it all went swimmingly until the day of the deadline. Strategically cutting with the finest of embroidery scissors, I managed to make one cut too many in my beautiful blouse! In the blink of an eye, my beautiful creation was spoiled, and with just hours to go until the meeting, I was desperately in need of an item to show... and so began the lilac purse adventure.

Off to the thrift store, I raced...

This lilac handbag was tossed into a bin of cast-offs, with nary a mark on the poor thing. No doubt, it was likely purchased for a wedding or some other special occasion. The simplicity of the style, and the somewhat vinyl-like texture of it, did not lend itself to a lot of fussy alteration. It was clean, and maybe a little boring to some, but it had potential and that was all I needed. Personally, I rather like a clean-lined simplicity to my projects, anyhow. It's just my own personal style... kind of classic and not a lot of fuss. The colour, though, was going to be a challenge in itself.

Everything for this particular recycled-artwear challenge, except for thread, had to be recycled. So I hunted through my stash of supplies to see what I could come up with in a hurry.

The grape leaves and stems were formerly part of a high-end silk-sprig that had outlived its usefulness, but inspired me to think grapes. The colour would work quite nicely and bring out the bluey-lilac tones of the bag. Now all I needed was something for the grapes.

Inspiration came again. I was struck by the shimmering tones in some floral "stones" that I had seen in a floral design wholesalers. I picked them up just because I loved the way the colours interacted and shimmered with each other. I had no plans for them, but they were eye-catching.

Our neighbour builds pools, and came home with a box of leftover blue mosic tiles. One box, was relatively useless to them, and he asked me if there was anything I could do with them. My father-in-law had just tossed a wonderful old, round, metal table and I thought it was a shame that I couldn't put a mosaic top on it. Lo and behold, a freebie of timely tiles had arrived! I decided that adding these stones, amidst the tiles, would work nicely and compliment the blue - if they could withstand the changing Canadian weather. (The "grapes" are in actuality the "frog" stones that you put in a vase with your flowers.)

The colour of the leftover stones, from the recycled-table project, certainly enhanced the colour of the bag...and my speedy, required project was birthed. And, it was certainly do-able in a couple of hours!

The "challenge" in this task was really about getting the grapes to stick to both the bag and to each other. After several frustrating attempts with different apoxys, super-glues, and glass adherants, they finally adhered! But, time was fading, all too fast...

You know the old saying, "the hurrieder I get, the behinder I get"?

Thus, the "incident". The stones, in their uncooperative state, were sliding off of one another, and in my haste to maintain control, I managed to get the glue on my fingers. It wouldn't work on the glass, but it didn't hesitate to create a bond on human flesh!

The ordeal ended up with an embarrassing call to the 1-800 number on their product. A dazed support tech, between snorts, wondered why I hadn't worn gloves, and chuckled as he explained the solution to my problem... it was just plain old nailpolish remover. Go figure...