Halloween Swirly Doily Purse

Halloween Swirl Purse

Looking for a sweet little purse for the Fall season? This cute little creation is sophisticated, fun, and oh-so sassy. Perfect for young and old, it’s a great alternative to that busting at the seams purse you’ve been toting around!

Halloween Swirl Doily Purse

What you need:
– Cigar box purse (I purchased mine at Michaels)
– black and orange acrylic paint
Black glitter Tulip 3-D Fashion Paint
– Foam brush
– Spray sealer
– Liquid Fusion glue
– small crocheted doilies (I would give you a tutorial, but I don’t know how to crochet! My friend Katie made me a handful of these crocheted creations!)
– buttons, rhinestones, and small embellishments for centers of doilies

What you do:
1. Paint entire base of purse with black acrylic paint using foam brush. Paint handle with orange acrylic paint. Let dry.
2. Squeeze Tulip 3-D Fashion Paint out onto paint and use foam brush to apply it all over base of purse.
3. Once dry, create a freehand swirl design all over front of purse with 3-D Fashion Paint. Let dry.
4. Lay out what you want and play around with design for doily centers. Glue elements like buttons together using Liquid Fusion. Let dry and then glue your elements to the the middle of your doilies.
5. Adhere doilies to purse front with Liquid Fusion. Let dry.

I think this purse would look cute dressed up or down. It’s perfect those who love a little Halloween fashion accent, but don’t like to dress up in costume!

In honor of my 24 Halloween crafts in 24 hours, I’m giving away a Swell & Spooktastic Halloween prize pack. Click here to check it out and enter!

Check back next hour for another Spooktastic craft idea!

Alexa

Another Swell Project: LOL Cat Purse

lol cat purse

So, I’ve been wanting to work on this project all week and I finally got around to it tonight. Isn’t it crazy that I’m actually posting 2 projects in 2 days?

Anyway, I wanted to create a funny purse that I can carry around with my own cat Pixie on it, but something that said a little something about her personality. She definitely has a varied demeanor. She’s not as mean as this picture looks, but she does have her moments where I kinda don’t want to cross her path.

This purse is really fast and fun and only takes a couple hours to complete…here’s how:

Supplies:
– Wooden box purse (mine was purchased from Michaels)
– Americana Acrylics paint in Lamp Black
– Craft Twinkle paint in Crystal
– DecoArt’s Multi-Purpose Sealer
– About 50 6mm crystal rhinestones
– high quality resolution cat photo
– Computer with photo editing software and inkjet printer
– white cardstock
– scissors or paper cutter
– foam brush
– spray adhesive
– black stamp pad
– super glue or permanent adhesive glue like E-6000

Instructions

1. Pick out your cat photo and think of a funny lol cat phrase to accompany it. To translate your phrase into LOLCAT speak, visit the Speak LOLCAT web site and type in a phrase to translate.

2. Open up your image in Adobe Photoshop or other image editing software. Crop your image to be 6.25″ x 6.25″. Make sure to think about where you are going to place your text inside the are when cropping. From your fonts menu, select Impact and type out your phrase (mine was set at 50pt type). Scale to fit in your image and save. Now print your document onto cardstock according to printer specifications.

3. Using scissors or paper cutter, cut out image and set aside.

4. Using Lamp Black paint, paint entire box with foam brush, being careful not to get paint on handle (only unless you want you handle painted too). Let dry. Paint inside of purse if desired and let dry. Once dry, paint with Crystal Craft Twinkles all over box except for front. Let dry.

5. Spray back of print out lightly according to directions with spray sealer. Adhere image to front of purse, pressing firmly to release any air bubbles. Use stamp pad to go around adhered image to get ride of white edge. Let dry.

6. Seal entire purse with Multi-Purpose Sealer. Let dry.

7. Use glue to adhere rhinestone crystals about 3/4″ apart around top and sides of box (I didn’t add rhinestones to the bottom of mine, because I thought it might sit funny, but you can if you want).

This is a really cute idea that could be applied to a lot of different surfaces…heres some quick ideas if you want to use it in other décor and accessories:

– pillow
– stacked box set for an office (wooden or papier maché)
– Belt buckle
– magnets
– tote bag

The sky’s the limit. OK, now time for me to go and snuggle for the night with my inspiration. After all, she does know where I sleep.

Until next time Swellions!

Alexa

All content/photos copyright, © Alexa L. Westerfield, 2008