She picked out a lovely tangerine purse with a crocodile texture, great to pair up with a beach theme which I mentioned in an earlier post, is her favorite. The purse had a funky decoration on it so she took it off and found a great clam sea shell that matched the purse. That is when I stepped in and brought the purse home to see if I could create that perfect summer purse for her.
Purse Before Photo
I took the clam shell and laid it on a couple of pieces of blue masking tape that you use when painting. The tape had the sticky side up so the shell would not move around. The shell had a hole already drilled though it so I wanted to leave that area open so I could drill a couple more holes in the shell to fasten to the purse when it was completed.
I added white sand, a sea horse, tiny sand dollars, star fish and sea shells to the main clam shell and covered it with a clear layer of resin. Since our purses tend to get knocked around a lot, or at least mine does, I wanted many layers of resin over the shells. I did five layers of resin and got it to the texture I was looking for.
Shells covered in thick coats of resin.
Next step was to drill a couple more holes next to the one that was already on the shell. Made me a bit nervous. I was hoping it would not crack the entire project, but I used a tiny drill and it worked great. With the extra holes in place I had to do the hardest part for me which was to sew it onto the purse. Getting the needle up through the shell was kind of tricky but that worked out also. The inside lining of the purse does not look as nice as I would like but I did the best I could.
Shells sewn on purse.
So far so good, everything is going per plan. Now to cover up the thread I used and the holes. So I added a few more shells and yes some additional resin. One thing I did not anticipate was the shell decorations being to heavy to hang nicely on the purse. As an extra added precaution I fastened the decoration down to the purse with my favorite E6000 glue. Miracle glue, I use it all the time.
More shells, more resin!
I really wanted to make sure there was no loose edges when I fastened the shell decorations to the purse so I added a couple last coats of resin around the edges and I was at last happy with the purse. Looks like it is ready to jump into summer and maybe hit the beach a few times.
It is all packed and ready to mail tomorrow. You can easily decorate any purse you pick up to suite yourself. Vintage pins and brooches are a awesome touch and easy to attach. Or get some crafting goodies and your glue gun or my favorite E6000 glue and go to work. It is always fun to see the end results.
Enjoy!
