A Colorful Crocheted Flower Handbag

It's been years since I've crocheted anything of significance.  A few months ago I became charmed by all the brightly colored crocheted flowers that I was seeing on Pinterest.

I poked around the various linking websites for weeks until I found a handbag design that I could adapt to what I was looking for.  Then I found some great black wooden handles at Joanns Crafts.  They're even made by a company called "Everything Mary".

I prefer using 100% cotton yarns.  I've used some of Paton's Grace Yarns and Lion Brands cotton yarns for the flowers.  For the body of the handbag I used Bernat's cotton De Lux yarn in black.

I used some straight pins to figure out where the front would be as I wanted to place the various crocheted flowers and leaves only on the front of the handbag.  A few of the flowers have little polka dot buttons added that I purchased at Michaels crafts in the scrapbook section.

Here's the finished design stuffed nicely so that I could stand it up to take this photograph.

 

I won't sugar coat it....there are a whole lot of hours in creating this handbag.  But if you work on the flowers a little at a time while watching TV and just collect them up it won't seem so long.

 

The dimensions on the handbag are 11" wide by 10" tall with a 3" wide base.  The wood handles add another 5".

I've placed this One of a Kind Crocheted Flower Handbag in my Etsy.com store for sale @ $165 bucks here :-) All of the photos will enlarge if you click on them once and then click again for a close up view.

Thanks for stopping by and taking a look.  Please feel free to ask any questions you might have and I'll try to help.

 

A Very Busy Week

Well it's been so long since I've posted I forgot the html code to use in my title :-)  I attribute my long absence to being busy working and to spending as much time as possible being creative.

On Thursday last week Mary Engelbreit Studios sent out the email blast pictured above.  It was news to me and it, also, was the first time that they had put the Limited Edition Collection of Cherry Chick Jewelry that I have been designing for them the past year, on sale.  The jewelry must have sold like "hotcakes" because they went from 16 designs available on their website down to 1 now.  I mean everything just sold out!  Happy Dance!

I am happy to share that it drove some traffic to my personal websites where I wasn't having a sale.  But that didn't seem to matter.

 

Fortunately, this week I have been busy creating new designs to sell in my Artfire.com and Etsy.com shops.

 

 I'm grateful for the positive response and added attention.  I know the stuff will sell if people just know it's out there!  

 

 A big Thank You to all my wonderful customers and friends.  I truly appreciate your support.  Group Hug!

 

Spring Has Sprung

 

I was recently given this beautiful vase of yellow tulip bulbs.  I've never seen tulips growing this way but they sure are beautiful.  I love this time of year because I can open up my front door to my screened in porch so that the fresh air can dance it's way into my house.

This beautiful weather has inspired me to create a few new designs like this pair of whimsical Poppy Flower earrings.

Here's a little Poppy Flower glass lampwork bead on a checkered memory wire bracelet that I just designed.

 

One last Poppy Flower design to share with you.  The "Poppy Flower Spring Bracelet."  All of the new designs are available in my Artfire.com shop.  If you look to the right on this page you should see my most recent creations.

Thanks so much for stopping by and taking a look.

 

The Latest Project...

For awhile now I've wanted to create a more appropriate cover for my tablet computer.  I've, also, wanted to try my hand at crocheting some of those cute flowers that I've seen all over Pinterest.

 

Last week I came across this black felted tablet cover while poking around Jo-Ann Fabric & Crafts.  I was doing so good keeping myself out of there but the lure of four 50% off coupons was just too much temptation.  I had managed to stay away since before Christmas but I'm only human!  What's a woman to do!

 

I sort of followed some flower and cherry patterns from Pinterest but then I made up my own variations on them.

I played around with the red flower idea and added in the Cherry glass lampwork cabochon bead but that wasn't working for me. 

 

 

So then I decided to put the glass bead in the middle as a "button" accent.  I liked that better but it was too plain and would need to be embellished.

I figured out the cherry bead placement but then I decided that I wanted to change up the crocheted flower idea.  That's when I decided to create the little Fried Egg Flower Poppy look.  Much cuter idea right?

A closeup view...

I did some bead embellishing around the cherry closure bead and finished attaching all of the crocheted flowers and cherries.

A closeup view of the embellished cherry cabochon bead.  I think it's now a much worthier cover for my tablet and way cuter than the old cover I'd picked up from Target over a year ago.

 

Thanks for stopping by and for letting me share.

A Friend...

is someone who knows all about you but Loves you anyway.