craftgrrl | 3 fingered clutch, made out of a placemat (Reply)

I went to a thift store and found these inexpensive placemats made out of wood strips. I figured they would make EXCELLENT purses. What I did was snip out pieces of the wood inbetween the weaving so that you could put some fingers in there for a handle. The purse is fairly light and you can only get about 3 fingers in the handle so I named it the 3 fingered clutch.

I sewed a liner to suit the shape of the inside of the bag. To make it without a pattern I layed the placemat over the fabric traced it and cut it out. Then I cut out 2 rectangles to act as the sides, and cut an arch in the fabric so that it would be round like the bottom of the bag.

Because the placemat is wood I used a hot glue gun to very carefully glue in my liner. (hot glue works wonders) I may also take watered down white glue and spread it over the inner fabric to make sure that the liner stays put and doesn't peel off. Don't make the white glue too watery or your bag will not be as flexible any longer.

Then I just had fun decorating the front of the bag. I folded up some bows, cut off the back of a beautiful shiney purple button and put it on. Wrapped a little fabric through the handle for appearance. And added a piece of lace along the top. This bag was tons of fun to make.