Weaving Round Handbag From Paper

In the time of social distancing in order to slow down the spread of COVID-19, let's save the world by staying creative at our home. When I saw those round rattan sling bags, I thought it was nice and I really wanted to make my own. But sadly I don't know where to find rattan in my area. So I decided to make a round handbag from other materials, like papers. In this instructables, I will show you how to turn papers into a round handbag with weaving techniques.

You'll need:

• I wanted to make the sling bag with natural light brown color, so I used a kind of paper called "kertas payung" in Indonesia. But if you can not find this paper, you can use a Newspaper as well.
• Waterbased acrylic and brush (If you use newspaper)
• Rolling tool (I used wire from an umbrella, but you can use pre-cut wire hanger)
• Glue stick
• UHU all-purpose glue
• PVAc glue
• Cutter
• Scissors
• PVAc glue
• Varnish for decoupage: doff/matte
• Cylindrical tool. I used correction tape, you can use a board marker as well
• Burlap
• Burlap thread
• Ribbon
• Plastic bottle cap
• Hot glue

Supplies used in this step:

• paper/newspaper
• cutter
• rolling tool
• glue stick

Cut the papers into some pieces as you can see in the picture. If you use the newspaper, cut a page into 6 pieces. Roll the paper using the rolling tool. Use your right thumb to roll the paper, and your left thumb to keep the paper steady. Secure the tip of the paper with the glue stick. The sling bag consists of 2 round woven paper: front side and backside. For

If you use newspaper, you might want to paint the paper rolls.

supplies: water-based acrylic; water; brush.

If you look at the paper rolls, you are going to realize that there are several groups of paper rolls: the ones with color prints; the ones with large black letters, the ones with small prints; and the other ones have no prints on them. If you are going to make a bright color bag, I suggest you choose paper rolls with no to little print on it. But if you want to paint them with a darker color, then you can use any group of paper rolls.
Prepare the water-based acrylic paint mixed with water. Brush the paint on the paper rolls, make sure to cover all of the surfaces and wait until dry.

Supplies used in this step:

• paper rolls
• cylindrical tool
• UHU glue
• PVAc glue
• tweezers

This could be a tricky step, so I explain it in points based on picture order:

1. Take one paper roll and wrap around a cylindrical tool. Add PVAc glue on several points. Stop wrapping the paper before it reaches the end of the paper roll.

2 & 3. Add UHU glue on the end of the paper ring, then insert it in a new paper roll. Take this ring out of the cylindrical tool.

4 - 6. Take another paper roll and glue the tip of it to the ring as you can see in the picture.

In the next steps, you can see the video to understand how to weave the papers.

7 & 8. Continue weaving until you reach the desired size of the sling bag. Mine was 19 cm in diameter (you might want to measure your phone or wallet-size so they can fit in the bag).

9. When you reach the desired size, cut the part of the weaving paper as you can see in picture 9.

Now we need to cover the gap in the last round of paper weave as you can see in picture 10. Previously, we insert the paper to 'A', but to cover the gap in the last round, insert the paper to 'B' (see picture 11).

12. Secure this step by inserting the paper to the backside, and add glue.

I used 96 paper rolls to make one side of the bag. Don't forget that we need 2 of these round woven paper.

Supplies used in this step:

• PVAc glue
• water
• brush
• varnish

Mix PVAc with water 1:1 or 1:2 depends on the thickness of the glue, I suggest starting from 1:1. Then apply the glue mixture on each side of the round paper using a brush. After dry, protect it with varnish. I used the doff one because it's said that the glossy one was just too much, and the glow that the doff one gives is just perfect.

The varnish will leave a murky white trace at first, so keep brush it slowly until the trace invisible.

Supplies used in this step:

• ribbon
• tweezers

I made the bag handle by braiding the ribbon, make it double and then swirl them together. Then I inserted them to the woven paper using tweezers.

Supplies used in this step:

• burlap
• burlap thread
• hot glue
• tweezers

Glue around the burlap and connect to the woven paper. You can stitch them. Here, I used a burlap thread to connect the burlap to the woven paper.

Supplies used in this step:

• plastic bottles cap
• burlap thread
• ribbon
• UHU glue
• tweezers

I wasn't going to make any closure for this bag, but I thought it's good to add security. So I made the button closure using a plastic bottle cap and attach it to the center of the woven paper as you can see in the picture. To cover it up I braided the ribbon and flu it down on the bottle cap. The last step Is to add a burlap thread to be the closure string.

Here it is the result. The bag can be flattened when not used, so it's quite a space saving bag.

Actually it was the first bag I've ever made, so I think it would be nice if you would share your thoughts about this round weaved paper handbag :D. Thank you for reading this instructable until the end.

Don't forget to wash your hands!

Quinzy Varira | Instagram | TikTok

Shopee (Indonesia)

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