Altered handbag

Hi!  I was a bit bored this past weekend so I fiddled around on Blogger and finally figured out how to add tabs at the top of our blog.  So our blog got a little face-lift.  Hehe.  Anyway, I thought now would be a good time to start making some teacher gifts since I was lucky enough to find some alterable products at a local store for 75% off!  I should've bought more but I wasn't sure what the products would be like and even though they were really inexpensive, I didn't want to spend too much.  And iCopic's Weekly Challenge #71 is Anything BUT a card so I get to play along! 

So this is what I bought.  It's from Kaisercraft.  I think it's made from MDF so it's pretty sturdy.

I painted one set purple and another one pink though I will save the pink one for a different project.  I used acrylic paint that my husband has had for years too.  So this project will be fairly inexpensive.  Excuse the tofu container.  Tofu containers are pretty convenient for this type of project.  I used one to hold water and another for the paint and you can rest your projects on them to dry.  We even use some to make huge chunks of ice.  Maybe only people here do that?

I used washi paper to cover the bag and added Sister Stamps Ayako.  The die cut border is from MFT and I cut one in purple cardstock and another in gold.  It's amazing how long I hold onto crafty supplies.  The gold piece is actually gold ribbon that I used for our wedding favors more than 10 years ago!  We used them to make gold fans and to tie our chopsticks together when giving away chopsticks was all the rage way back then.  Also added lots of purple rhinestones.

Ayako is colored in Copics with a touch of PMC black pencil in her hair.

Did you notice my tag?  I made a Mizuhiki knot following a tutorial HERE.  This knot is called an abalone knot.  I think this knot is a pretty general one for most occasions though I'm not sure.  I've also had these gold cords since our wedding prep days.  We never used them and I thought about giving them away but good thing we didn't.  Oh, and the purple ribbons were also from our wedding favors!

Just to show the width of the bag.  I'm not sure what I'm gonna place in this yet. 

This is the back.  I personalized it with PTI's alphabet dies.  Added more bling too.

Since All That Scraps now sells Sister Stamps, I'll be entering this in their Wednesday Challenge--All About the Sparkle too.

Thanks so much for reading!