An Indian Style Leather Handbag

I've always loved the Indian style, also I've been thinking about making a handbag for my laptop, so I combined the ideas, designed and drafted it, and finally brought these out with leatherwork.

Main Materials

• x2 Leather(white)- 26cm*36cm
• x1 Leather(brown)- 18cm*36cm
• x1 Indian style button(decoration)
• x1 magnetic snap(optional)

• Leather strap

• CMC

• Glue/Adhesive for leather

Tools

• Craft knife/X-acto knife
• Cutting board
• Pliers
• Awl
• Spacing gauge(optional)
• Leather chop
• Hammer/Mallet
• Needles & Threads (brown & white)
• Poundoboard (or other pounding surface)

First, apply CMC to smoothen the flesh side of the leather.

I don't want perfect straight lines, so I just drew random lines on the paper and chose one to cut it out. After that I use a cutter knife to trace the same line onto the leather, here's important- don't cut through the leather, but get it half-cut,then tear the pieces apart with pliers so the fibers would pop out, giving a sense of wildness to the handbag.

You can see the difference between a teared-edge and a normally-cut one in pic.3. Also it's a good idea to try and practice on a little piece of leather first :)

Start from a tiny gap, grasp the plier and here we go...

3-2-1-Tzzzzzzzsssss!

The leather's gradually teared apart along the pre-cut line, and you also can see a lot of fibers. I love this cuz you don't know where you're heading to precisely,and what would come out in the next second~

While the first tear provides a general shape for the flap, it's necessary to do some more modification or deal with the details. For example, I used a x-acto knife to make tiny splits so the edge didn't look too dull, I also cut the fibers that were too long so the edge didn't get messy, either

The front of the handbag is simply a white rectangle with two fillets, not so much work for the shape ;D

Align the flap and the front, then glue them together, I used a strong adhesive for leather, it dried pretty quickly and glued well, but was super stinky!!

Time for sewing~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now it's time to make the back of the handbag,just like the front, I also started from cutting a simple rectangle, then two fillets, then a big mouth, which helps fetching the things inside more easily.

Firstly I scrubbed the edge so that it got rough and integrated better with the glue, then I glued the front and the back carefully, and finally pounded hard to ensure a firm combination. It just started to look a like a real bag :D

Leave the bag several hours for the glue to dry completely, then spend the other several hours for punching holes! As for the connection I came up with cross-stitch(not so sure about the name), which meant the holes needed to be circular and the stitch would come out like ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^, here's how I did this.

• Mark a guideline with the spacing gauge (0.3cm from the edge)
• Use a chop to locate the holes all along the line
• Pound an awl to create round holes

p.s. remember to hold the awl straight up, or else you get awful holes like my first ones, I should've practiced first... but as I went on my punching skills got better and better.

Usually, applying the edge oil/ edge coats is one of the last steps, but since the threads would cover the edge in the circumstance of cross-stitch, I decided to burnish and paint the edge first.

It's a good idea to protect the leather with masking tape before the painting, cuz when you pull it off, you also get rid of the extra paint.

Time for sewing again ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

It took long long hours to sew, but I was really satisfy with it ! HOORAY!!

Finally I could try the handbag with my old laptop ,they fit perfectly and the handbag plumped up right away, great!

So far the handbag functions well, but what about the "Indian" part? Well, white and brown are typical Indian-style colors, so is the silver/turquoise button(mine is faked,hopefully to make a real one someday) and the leather strap,which gives a strong Indian feeling. I also attached a magnetic snap beneath the button so that the brown flap wouldn''t really flap around lol.

And I'd like to thank you for reading this instructable :D