With just a few hours to spend together one Sunday afternoon my friend and I decided to have a go at making paper bags. I didn't want to make a shoulder bag so decided to go for a clutch bag with a travelling theme.
We started of with brown paper which we scrumpled up over and over again until it became lovely and soft and felt like a soft fabric. This was then ironed to flatten it slightly.
Next I dripped on Alcohol Inks in various colours to cover the whole piece. This was then followed by a copper coloured acrylic paint rubbed on with my finger so it picked the ridges of the paper.
Once this was done various travel images, hotels, destinations etc were stuck on and once dried were rubbed over with sand paper to age them before being painted with 3 layers of acrylic wax. Hand stitching was then added round the images and also in the free spaces on the bag.
Black felt was bonda-webbed to the inside and cut round the body using a soldering iron, allowing a small edge to protrude from the finished front. The bag was then hand stitched all the way round.
As I wanted it to be a travel bag I decided to make a matching journal to go inside following the same process but with out adding all the pictures it. The stitching was also kept simple.
We intend to take it with us to Sweden so we can record all the wonderful sights we see.
