Comic-Con Satchel

I made this handbag specifically for going to conventions, just in time for Emerald City Comicon! I started out with the diamond shape (from Superman's logo) but I decided to do it in black and yellow (Batman colors) so I could use black leather.

I didn't use a pattern, other than drawing out a diamond shape. All of the sides are basically rectangle pieces so I just had to measure the lengths of each side and then make all of the strips 5 inches wide. I added an 18" black zipper to the top and a 7" black zipper on the side (for a secret side pocket). The lining is yellow satin fabric I had leftover from my World of Warcraft Priest costume.

When it came time to add a strap, I struggled with indecision. Do I add D-rings and then make a strap out of the black leather? Where am I going to find the right hardware to make the strap adjustible? Then I looked over in the corner of my craft room where I had a pile of Warner Bros. bags I had hoarded from SDCC 2011. I had a "duh!" moment before I whipped out my thread ripper and pulled the strap off one of the bags (which had Big Bang Theory on it). Not only did the strap fit perfectly, but the colors were spot-on!

Tutorial: Golden Book Repurposing

So you might have seen people starting to sell old children's books remade into journals.  Well I'm here to show you how to do it :)  To be honest if you dont have the equipment it might be cheaper to go ahead and purchase one from a crafting seller.

Here we start off with a classic Golden Book.  Ok this isn't that vintage, but I really liked the cover art for this Cars Book.

Now to cut off the spin,  I like to use a circle blade cutter (on a cutting mat of course).  It runs pretty smoothly on the crease of the spine of the book.

See spin comes of pretty straight.

And it comes with pretty pages inside with all the same line cut.

Using a sprial bound hole punch to cut the holes.  I've purchased a whole stack of books, and I've noticed that GoldenBooks are the thickest cut my punch can go through, so some of the older books from the 70s just dont work out here.  But you also dont want a flimsy, just cause sturdy books are well, just more sturdy. 

Here's the more expensive piece of this project. I happen to have a spiral bound hole punch sitting in my room, not everyone has one and they are pretty pricey. 

The sprial bound punches ususally also come with a handy feature which stretches out the plastic spirals so you can slide your pages in.

Here we can include blank paper for drawing, line paper for journaling, or whatever else you desire.  I like to slip several pages of the original book in the middle to both section off chucks of the book and give back to the wonders of the story.

In my case the plastic spirals (purchase and the office supply store for pretty cheap) is too long.  But no worries, any handy dandy scissors cut those down the size really easily.

Yay now you have your own little self made journal.






WARNING:  Please practice using the sprial bound punch.  Here's some photographic evidence of my many botches.