The Glam Date Bag

Something shiny. Something sparkly. Something that pops and stands out whenever you lay your eyes on it. That is what the Glam Date Bag does for me! It’s fun, it’s handmade, and follows my artsy chic handbag style! Welcome to #OnMondaysWeBagBlog, where it’s all about the bag! 

The Glam Date Bag was a bag I specially made for one of my best friends wedding. I knew this bag had to be something small, something that I didn’t have to hold in my hands, and something that was going to stand out! I mean, it’s a wedding, of course everything had to pop! Including my handbag! 

I started with a natural colored vegetable tanned leather, which was a light tan. After some testing between dying and painting the leather, I decided to paint the leather a silver color that had a slight shimmer to it. I honestly would have preferred to dye the leather, but had forgotten to pick up leather deglazer; which is used to remove the top protective coat of leather to allow the die to sink into the leather. Therefore, my dye was not working properly, and I did not have enough time to pick up some deglazer. So paint it was, and how amazing it turned out! 

The next step in the bag making process, after the leather pieces had been painted, was to prepare and stitch the bag pieces together. For this handbag, I wanted to try something different, a way of designing the bag I had not done before. For the design and assembly of the gusset (the side of the bag) I wanted to do what I would call a depth affect, where the gusset piece isn’t just a flat piece, but had depth to it. Keep in mind this was not depth going from front to back, as the side gusset piece already does that. This was giving the side gusset piece depth going in. This is a technique that adds a beautiful design accent to a bag and is quite easy to do. 

After the bag pieces were assembled, the last step was to add the hardware and the rhinestones. My initial intent was to add the rhinestones in a packed assembly, to where no part of the leather was visible, and that is how I actually started. However, while adding the rhinestones, with “rhinestone glue,” as the glue was drying it was fogging the rhinestones. After completing about 1/4 of the bag, I decided to remove the rhinestones and add them in a random fashion, using good ol’ Aleene’s original tacky glue. The result, you ask? Take a look below! 

I hope you all enjoyed today’s #OnMondaysWeBagBlog! Until next time!

🫶🏼 J. Christine