A recent project of mine. I have been loving the clare vivier simple totes with the punch of neon, but not only is the price way out of my range...I can't imagine myself being in love with neon forever. This was an inexpensive way to enjoy the neon love.
I found a grey leather skirt at my local Value Village for $5. I came home, cut it up, and made this simple tote bag. To get the punch of neon, I first put a base coat of white acrylic paint on the area I wanted neon. Once dry, I used an acrylic neon paint over the white. Viola! A neon leather tote.
While I am not going to give a full tote bag tutorial (either most of you already sew, or you can find a gazillion other tutorials on the web) I did want to offer a few tips I have figured out in sewing this leather.
1. You need a leather needle for your sewing machine. Also, make sure your machine is heavy duty enough to handle sewing through mulitple layers of leather.
2. I recommend getting heavy duty thread.
3. If possible, use the hem of the skirt as the top of your purse. that way you avoid too many stitches in the leather and have a nice finished edge.
4. keep to a pattern simple enough that you are only ever really sewing through four layers of leather at a time. After that I really started having trouble getting the machine to go through the leather without jumping (see part of the handle).
It was a really fun project and I forsee making more leather goods in the future!