Strawbag customization ♥

I prepared this entry weeks ago, but I never found the time to edit and post it. =/
Before this entry´s going to die on my desktop painfully, I rather post the raw version now. XD" (Sorry, I`m still lacking the time for a proper, perfect post~ T__T)

Hope you´re all doing well girls, have a gorgeous summer! =D


It´s summer time now - time for light dresses, stylish hat´s, and of course strawbags! Haha, at least for me, strawbags are a big MUST-HAVE during every summer season. =)

Ever since I found out about Liz Lisa and Curvy´s, I fell so in love with their deco-ed accessory´s and bags - especially the strawbags of the spring&summer collections!

So cute!Liz Lisa Bags: left upper corner, right lower corner
Curvy´s Bags: right upper corner, left lower corner

But I never got myself to buy one in the end...
Some weeks ago, I found a very nice looking and cheap strawbag at a discounter, such as lot´s of cute flowers and ribbons - and so I decided to deco my own strawbag.
(NOTE: I didn´t do any crafting since I was maybe 15 years old. xD")

This is the outcome!

Haha, quite different from the bags shown above - but I still love it to death! =D

It was so easy to customize the bag! Definately worth a try, it´s really fun - and it can also safe some money. =)
I took a few pictures / walkthrough for you, to see how easy it is to create your own cute strawbag! =D

Up on the pictures! x3


Some of the material I used:

NEEDED:

~ plain strawbag (you can find them pretty much everywhere now, and for quite cheap! Mine was about 10€, if I remember right!)
~ plastic flowers / ribbons / dolls / whatever you find cute! =)
~ different ribbons
~ pearls or some other blingy things
~ glue gun (VERY important! You could try another kind of glue, too - but using the hot glue is the fastest and most solid way)

ADDITIONAL (if you´d like to add a drawstring closure like mine):

~ some cute fabric (I used and old tuniq that I didn´t wear for ages)
~ tape measure / pins / matching thread to your fabric / sewing needle / maybe sewing machine
~ sturdy ribbon

AMOUNT OF TIME:
Depending on how many details you wanna add. =)
My customization took me about 3 hours (mainly because of the *** sewing part. xD")


At first, I started with sewing the drawstring closure - this is an additional step and not really required. I just wanted to add it to my bag, because I feel more safe when no stranger can take a straight look into my bag. xD"

Sorry, I didn´t take much photos of this step, because I`m such a NOOB in sewing (especially when using a sewing machine. xD"). I guess it wouldn´t be a great help anyways. =/

This is the outcome of my amateurish try´s. xD"

Top: Those ruffles were added to the seems of the sleeves of the tuniq. I just cut them off from each side, and sewed the two of them together again to get one big line of ruffle.
Bottom: I cut two big rectangles out of my tuniq, and sewed them together at the short sides. Then I prevented the edges of the fabric from fraying with using a special kind of zig-zag stitching of the sewing machine. Next step was sewing a kind of tunnel on the top of the big rectangle. When I finished all the sewing, I slowly pushed a sturdy ribbon through this tunnel - to create the drawstring closure effect.

Aaargh, sorry. It´s so hard to explain that, so you may rather check some tutorials about "drawstring sewing" on the internet. =(
Sorry, but I don´t have the time to research for suitable links now, plz forgive me that! Dx

Here´s the outcome anyways!
After glueing the fabric inside the bag:
Not perfect (since not perfectly closing all the way up... lol), but still nice! XD"

After the sewing was done, I started decorating the outside of the bag. =)
I found a cute heart lace at a department store, and I just had to stick it onto the bag ♥
It´s plastic lace, so it´s easy to clean... but a tiny bit itchy therefore! xD"

Adding the lace...
I sued the glue gun to stick the lace to the bag. I glued the edge of the ribbon right behind one of the handles, so that nobody will recognize the beginning and ending of lace.
I only used small dot´s of glue every 5cm to stick the lace on the bag, to make the glue more invisible. (lace = has got lot´s of holes = easy to see shiny glue SOLUTION: only use small dot´s of glue every 5cm. =D)

Outcome...
Pretty nice, but still so naked...

So let´s add some flowers (or the cute deco that you prefer most)! =D
First, just lay the deco down on your bag to see what it looks like - don´t use the glue yet!
Just to get an idea how to arrange the deco at it´s best. =)

HINT: If you wanna glue a lot of different kind of / size of pieces on your bag, make sure you arrange the biggest parts first - then arrange the smaller parts after that. This will make coordinating your deco a lot easier for you! =)

Once you made up your mind, you can start glueing one by one...
This is how my bag came out after that...
As you can see, I rearranged the flowers - my first idea wasn´t the best, I found out. xD"

The bag´s look is pretty sweet already, but I wanted it to be more cute and princessy...So I made myself a big bow of one of the ribbons I bought before, and glued it at one corner of the bag. (You can find an example how to make a cute bow here! =D)
There was still some princessy bling-bling missing, so I glued on some different sized white pearls that I found somewhere around my house. =)
(Not easy to see them on the photos. =( It´s looking way more elegant and blingy in real life!)


FINISHED~
I decided to leave the bag like this. =)
As much as I love over-the-top deco-ed things... in this case, I prefer this simple and a bit more elegant look! =D


So that´s it for now! =D
I hope I could give you some inspiration to decorate your own super cute strawbag! If you do so, I would love to see some photos of the outcome! ;D


Have a great summer! =D

It´s such a sweet, sweet life, isn´t it?