Hello! Welcome back to another episode of make thrift buy, the show where you send in
suggestions of cool clothing or accessories that you’ve seen on the internet and I do
my best to recreate them! Today’s episode was suggested by LxIDIY13, who wanted me to
try and recreate this animal face shoulder bag. The one that was suggested to me is from
a cheap wholesale website called CNDirect, but you can basically find these things, like,
everywhere. You can find them in all different sizes from large tote bags to really small
coin purses, and you can also find them for worryingly cheap. Like I found these purses
on ebay for 93 cents, and that includes free shipping.... Now when something is this cheap,
it makes me a little bit worried about exactly how much the person who made it was getting
paid. Besides, it looked like something that would be a really fun challenge to try and
recreate for myself. SO, let’s begin!
So the first thing that I needed to do was to find an image of an animal's face. I went
onto a royalty-free image website and I typed in “puppy”. Sorry cat people, but I wanted
to make a dog face bag instead. Now, the best type of image for this project will be an
animal that has a really round head, and sticky-up ears – so, like this one, or this, or this
or this. However, this French Bulldog won my heart, and it was also a perfect image
to use because it had a really round head, very sticky-up ears and a white background
which would be easy to remove.
Next, I opened up the image in photoshop and I removed the background and the body. Then,
I carefully separated the ears from the image so that they were separate from the head.
I also made the ears a little bit smaller in relation to the head, because I didn't
want GIANT ears on my bag.
I saved the image as a high quality JPEG, opened it up in a word document and then printed
it out onto photo transfer paper; along with a bunch of other images that I’m going to
use for future projects, because I don’t like to waste my photo transfer paper on blank
space! This stuff isn't that cheap!
Speaking of wasting photo transfer paper, the first printing… didn’t go so well.
I tried to fix this dodgy print job with a black marker, but… I’m not the artist
I thought I was, and, this looked... let's be honest, really bad. So, I needed to print
out another.
Now when you’re printing your image, make sure that you select the highest quality printing
possible. This is where I went wrong before. Now THIS is much better.
Then I also decided that the head needed to be a bit bigger anyway, so I printed out a
third. And I guess that I’ll make a coin purse
out of the smaller one. Anyway, as you can see I cut out and separated
the head and the ear pieces. And then, I peeled the backing paper off the photo transfers.
Then, with this cotton linen material that I thrifted, I cut out pieces of fabric that
were a bit larger than my images. And then, I ironed both the head and the ears onto their
respective bits of linen fabric to transfer the images onto the fabric.
Then, I used some fabric scissors to cut the fabric to the same shape as the images, leaving
about half an inch of fabric border around the edges.
Then, I worked out all the different pieces that I was going to need for my bag.
So, for the ears, I cut out two more pieces of black linen that were identical in shape
to the ears that I have already cut out.
Then, I placed each ear and it’s identical back piece right-sides together, and then
I sewed them together like this.
Then, I cut off the excess fabric outside of the stitches, and I turned the ears the
right way around, so that the photo transfer is on the outside.
For the front face section, I grabbed this thick fake leathery material, that I already
owned, and I cut out a piece that was identical in size to the face piece. This backing made
out of this stuff material is basically going to help the bag maintain it's shape. Then
I sewed the two together, wrong sides together, like this, leaving a gap down the bottom.
Through the gap, I filled the piece with a little bit of stuffing which will also help
it maintain its shape.
The next step is attaching the ears, which I attached to the front piece like THIS. I
know this looks like you’re sewing them on upsidedown, but just wait – this will
all make sense at the end.
I also cut off the excess fabric at the ends of the ears. Now in the next few steps, these
ears will need to stay DOWN out of the way on the front of the bag like this.
Now I'm going to attach my bag’s strap.
With 52 inches of bag strap… material… whatever you call this stuff – I secured
the strap onto the front of the face piece. I attached it using paper clips so that I
wouldn’t pierce through the photo transfer with pins. Making sure first that the strap
was not twisted, I sewed it onto the front of the bag like this.
Then, I gathered up all of the bag’s strap and I secured it with an elastic band. Like
the ears, this will also have to stay out of the way in the next few steps.
Finally, the front piece was FINISHED, and the bag-making can begin!
Now the method that I’m going to use to make my bag is extremely similar to how I
made this fluffy clutch back in episode 32. Now, if you’re wanting to try and make this
round bag, I highly recommend that you try it out using RECTANGLES first, using the same
method that I did with my clutch.
SO, in order to make my bag I am going to need my outer front piece, an outer back piece,
for which I am also using fake leather, and front and back lining pieces.
I am also going to need a zipper. Now, the zipper is best if it’s the same colour as
your photo transfer, but unfortunately I didn’t have any black zippers that were long enough
so I had to use this thrifted cream-coloured one instead.
Now, the first step of making a simple bag like this is to attach the front pieces to the zipper.
So first, lay down the lining piece and then I attached the zipper, with the zipper facing UP,
to the lining.
Now it helps here if you use a zipper foot on your sewing machine, and you can also unzip
the zipper because that will make sewing around the curve a little bit easier.
As you can see, my zipper is a little bit longer than I needed it to be, so I just let
it go off the edges like this. As long as you leave the zip part in the middle, this
will work fine. Next, it was time for me to attach the front piece, which I placed right-side
down on top of the zipper, and then I sewed it on like this. This is probably the most
difficult part to sew together, so I unzipped the zipper and I went really slowly.
Once that was all sewn together I flipped the lining over to the other side, so that
the zipper was free. The next step is to essentially do the same thing again – I placed the lining
down, then I put the zipper on right side up, and I sewed them together like this. Next
comes the outer back piece, which is placed right sides down, and then sewn on like this.
Then, again, I flipped the lining on the back piece around to the other side.
And now, I have something that almost resembles a bag! Kind of.
Now the next thing that I did was to place the front and back outer pieces right sides
together, move the lining UP and out of the way, and then I sewed the front and back outer
pieces together like this.
Then, I pulled the lining UP and above the bag as far as I could – and as you can see,
this is rather difficult to do on a circular-shaped purse – and then I sewed the lining pieces
together like THIS, with a large gap in the middle.
Then through that hole in the lining, I pulled everything the right way around. And, from
what looked like a big old mess just a moment ago, I got something which actually looked
ALMOST like a finished bag!
The only part which still needed sewing together is the small gaps at the side, which I wasn’t
able to sew together earlier because of the bag’s roundness.
Basically, all I have to do is to hand sew the gaps together using a needle and black
thread, like this.
Now with the outer section of the bag all sewn up, the last step was to pull out the
lining and sew the gap closed. Then, I put the lining back into the bag, zipped it up,
and I am DONE.
So, how did I go?
[music plays]
So, this was the final product, or products, and I couldn’t be happier with how they
turned out! They turned out soooo so well. This project is a definite:
[scissor snipping sound effect]
The only frustrating thing was that the size
of the bag was kind of limited to the size of a standard A4 size sheet of paper because
that's all my printer can handle. I couldn’t think of a way to make it bigger without actually
going and getting purchasing printed fabric, which is kind of expensive. So I was wondering
if any of you had an idea of a way that I would be able to make this bigger at home,
without just having to stick two transfer sheets together because there would be a line
right down the middle; it'd look kind of dodgy... If you have any ideas, then I'd love to hear
them, let me know in the comments below!
Now, I want to address an issue that I know is going to come up if previous youtube comments
are anything to go by. Each of these cost me around about $5 each to make. And while
yes, while one of the points of this series is to make fashion more accessible by showing
you how you can recreate items from the high street for a fraction of the cost, that is
not the main point of this series. Another extremely important reason that I do this
series is to reject the culture of “fast fashion”. And if something like a coin purse
only costs you 93 cents to make and then ship halfway across the world to your doorstep
– something seriously wrong is going on here. The person who made it is most likely
working in awful sweatshop conditions, or they're a child, or they're working under
slave labor, and I can’t support any company that would allow its workers to be treated
that way in order just to sell people who are more well-off cheap stuff. And THAT is
half of the reason that I make my own things. Be conscious of where your stuff is coming from!
And ending on that kinda political note, it’s now time to say goodbye. Tag me on instagram
using the hashtag #diyannika if you try out any of my projects and if you haven’t already,
then go check out my Patreon page! My Patreon supporters are AMAZING! Because of their support
I’ve been able to buy my camera a new camera lens, which is what is currently filming me
right now, because my old lens was broken. My patreon supporters are literally the reason
that you are watching this video right now. To give back to my Patreon supporters I have
exclusive vlogs, google hangouts, giveaways, sneak peeks of projects and behind-the-scenes
footage. So, consider to help me to keep making these videos by supporting me on Patreon!
You’re all beautiful, and I’ll see you all for my next video. Bye!