make a bag & a luggage tag

Well, the title sort of gives this one away: I made a bag & a luggage tag yesterday.

In fact, I have been so full of craft lately I ran out of white thread for my sewing machine & have very little black left. Darn, guess I have to go shopping!!

Here were the Pinterest images that I used as inspiration:

• luggage tag by Skip to my Lou – instead of adding a clear pocket on mine, I just made a business card slot. I get creeped out that people in the airport are all stalkers & I do not want them knowing my address.
• messenger bag by mommy by day {CRAFTER} by night – basic style was modeled off of this, I did not use a pattern though because I hacked/sewed pieces of an Ikea cushion cover together to make my bag.
• messenger bag with cute little buttons by OCD (obsessive crafting disorder) — again I sort of just picked certain aspects of this bag I liked & altered them a bit to make them unique

On to my stuff:

• As I said before, the outside of this bag was made from an Ikea cushion cover. I use Ikea fabric ALL THE TIME. Last time I made a tote bag, I used it & it has held up fantastically. Another reason, often I pay $4-5 for the cushion cover & end up with 1-2 yards of durable fabric. No other place I have gone has been able to beat that deal. Ikea also has “real” fabric you can buy that is pretty reasonable, but I much prefer dumpster diving in their “As Is” section for fabric.
• I tailored this bag specifically for me – I wanted a shorter strap (I hate when messenger bags flop around your body when you walk), the strap had to be padded (laptops get heavy after awhile), I wanted to be able to fit my laptop & other junk plus I wanted a pocket for my iphone & kindle, & I wanted something that could substitute taking my big old backpack on a plane as a carry on
• The price break down: $4.99 for the light/cream colored fabric (Ikea cushion cover), $.99 for the navy blue liner material (Ikea pillowcase), $1.29 for the green fabric (but really more like $.64 because I used the majority of the fabric before on this tote bag project), $0 for the buttons (they were from a skirt that looked better without the buttons) = TOTAL: $7.27 !!

it is long enough to fit my 13 inch MacBook Pro with room to spare

i absolutely LOVE these buttons

I used a little light weight shipping padding material inside the strap to make it padded

one pocket for my iphone (left), one pocket for my kindle (right)

I am calling this my California bag, but the reason for that will not be revealed until the next post ; )

Here is the luggage tag:

• This was a super easy & fun little project – I am certainly going to be making a ton more of these
• As I said before, I prefer the little pocket so that all the world is not reading my name, email address or physical address, but I am paranoid like that
• I choose the colors because Ben needed something on his nondescript black suitcase. It is insane to pick out, hopefully this will make it a big more noticeable. The darker colored fabric is pretty thick so  the luggage tag itself is pretty rigid (it is bendable, but not floppy, if that makes sense)
• To attach it to the bag all you do is loop the rectangle part through the strap & pull it tight
• The price breakdown (sort of hard to estimate because it was pretty small pieces of fabric), but I would say under $5 (probably closer to $2-3). The dark fabric was an scrap piece of Ikea fabric leftover from some other projects & the orange I found at Hobby Lobby for $2 for 1/2 a yard (obviously I still have a good chunk of that left).

the white indicates where the pocket the business card slides into is, I pulled it out a bit so it is visible

the back is bright colored so it will be recognizable on the luggage

These might just be my two favorite craft projects so far. I would also absolutely make both of these again. Neither of them were so complicated I needed to have a pattern & they both turned out so nice. Maybe if I start now by next Christmas I can make a luggage tag for everyone in my family!!

Seriously though, these were tons of fun. This is actually one of those things I would not mind making 100 of & selling. Maybe if I do not find a job soon…. maybe….

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