15. DIY tutorial :Transparent Studded Satchel Bag

Today's DIY is on the transparent trend!

I think this clear bag trend has grown on me a bit.
When I think of clear PVC bags I automatically think of those waterproof bags you bring to the beach or the swimming pool to carry all your shampoos and what not.

but now, after seeing some of these bags in shapes other than the boring zip up tote from brands like chanel, prada, marc jacobs, valentino....

 I think I quite like them.

They kind of remind me of xrays. (Which I totally dig.)

It was not until  when I was creeping on creepyyeha (again ) that I saw that she was making a clear studded bag.

I thought that it was GENIUS to use studs to attach pieces together and I could not wait to try and make my own.

Literally.

The next day I cut up the clear PVC Sheet that was covering my table. (sorry mom =) )

I do not have a step by step tutorial as this was my first time making a bag
so everything was pretty much trial by error

although I did use one of my bags and a guide

I will do the best to explain with detailed pictures of my inspired bag!

So, you will need ..
pvc, vinyl... any sort of clear bendable sheets you can find really..
a rotary punch..
studs..
magnetic clasp

bag hooks
buckles are optional as you can do without them


for  the construction of the bag there will be one giant rectangle and two smaller rectangles for the sides. the large rectangle will include the front, bottom, back and top covering...

and the 2 smaller rectangles will be the sides  with the additional 2 cm for the sides

make sure that when you are cutting this piece that you are calculating  the lengths of all those sections.

here is a picture of the side of my bag where you can see the smaller rectangles on the side and the giant rectangle in the front

with your large rectangle , make sure that you fold the bottom so you have an indentation of the shape of bottom of the bag as a guide for the size of your side panels 

the size of the sides will the  height of the front and back of your bag with an extra 2cm for the studding on the bottom  and the width of the bottom of the bag plus 2cms to put in the studs.

to sum things up..
side panels width = bottom of bag width + 4cm
side panel height =  front of  bag height + 2cm

basically you are just making a 3D rectangle and leaving extra space for the studs.
take a look at a bag or a box for reference if I suck too much at explaining.

OKAY. 

now make a small 2cm by 2cm cut at the edge of your side panels so that when you fold them to stud together with the sides you don not have any awkward extra pvc.

As you can hopefully see in this picture. 

now you align your side panels with the edges of your bag and make holes for your studs

this part can get a bit tricky.

the hardest part of making this bag was the fact that everything was so hard to see!

(I do not want to imagine how the invisibility cloak in Harry Potter was made. )once you got both side panels attached, you  will see the structure of your bag coming along quite nicely. 

now on to the straps

I decided to put both a shoulder strap and a hand carry strap on mine 

for the hand held strap, you just need a piece of pvc and 2 or 4 studs

I wanted to have extra support so I used 2 studs on each end but you could get away with one on each end.

make the holes pretty close to the ends of your handle and when you are making the holes on your bag to attach the handle, make sure the length between the holes from each side is shorter than the length between the holes on the strap. This ensures that you have space to put your hand through like le picture above!

for the shoulder straps...

you could just directly attach the straps to the bag but.....

I like to be fancy.

lets start with the ones attached to the bag.

start by making two holes on the side panels of the bag 

now cut out a strip and make a loop

punch two holes that mimic the holes on the bag on the edge of the loop

attach with studs

repeat with other side.

with the actual strap it is a similar process. 

I took these bag hook things from a strap of a bag that i did not use anymore but I think you can buy them separately at a fabric store. 

you take your pvc that you have cut in a long strip and put your hook through one end

enough that you have enough of the edge to fold over 

make a hole through the folded edge and the strap and put a stud through to seal it. 

if you don not have enough length to your pvc

you can use two separate strips of pvc and attach one piece on each end with the above method and the connect the top with a belt buckle in a similar fashion with the side hooks 

(a more detailed explanation on how to attach buckles in the decoration section below)

(look at a belt for reference if you have no clue what I am saying.)

above is a picture of my decorative belt buckles as a reference

if you have made it this far, you have ALMOST completed the basic parts of the bag! 

yay

now you can add  a closure to your bag!

there are many available options, like buttons or magnetic closures

you could also just leave it like this 

now all the basics are done!

ON TO THE DECORATIVE FUN 

I made an additional pocket in the inside of my bag and I used flat studs to attach them

In order to have space to put things in , I cut an isosceles trapezoid (oooo , I bet you are hating  me for the math.)

to avoid complex explainations, I present you a picture  for reference, 

okay. now image this shape upside down. 

the smaller part will be the bottom of the pocket. 

attach the edge of the bottom first. 

now take the top edge and align it  so that the top stud will be facing the bottom stud. 

Do that to the other side and then stud everything in between with the exception of the the opening of course. 

if you did it correctly,  the studs should resemble a square or rectangle depending on the size you cut the pvc. 

I also added decorative buckles on the top of my bag, 

making this is quite similar to attaching the shoulder straps

first you need a shorter strap where you will put the buckle and the loopy thing .

for this one, you need to make a hole for the buckle to go through 

when you are securing the two sides of the strap,don not forget to also attach the loop for the top strap to go through. 

of course you could also secure the buckle first and then attach the loop separately at the bottom.

for the top strap, you just need to poke some holes about one inch apart along the strap.

attach the edge of the strap to the edge of the top of the bag then loop your strap through the buckle like a belt!

I  also added metal edges to the strap ends and the corners of the top flap

the decorative brooch is to hide the clasp.  

.

AND THAT PRETTY MUCH SUMS UP EVERYTHING.

and this was so very long. 

I understand that this is probably not the easiest tutorial so if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

14. DIY corset lace up thigh high

So, this was originally suppose to be a diy corset lace up legging tutorial but they turned into this and I love them so much I'm going to make a legging version with some cool string colors

I was inspired by the  style stalker snakebite legggings that were popular a little while ago

but you know me, never one to spend more than 15 bucks on leggings
 so just had to make an inspired version instead

but anyways,
I went and dug around my closet for some pleather leggings and it turns out the only plain pair I had left had some holes in some certain areas..

so I decided to chop the legs off and just make them into these legwarmer/ thigh high socks

there's a number of ways that you could go about doing this.

if you wanted a more polished look, you could use eyelets or eyelet tape

personally, I don't mind the rough unfinished look so I used the simplest method. 

first you'll need rotary punch. 

this is for punching in the holes

if you are going to be putting grommets as well, make sure that your hole is slightly smaller if your fabric is stretchy 

then you take your leg and fold it in half where you want the lace up to happen

now you can mark and start punching the holes 

when you're finished with the holes cut a line down the middle of the fabric to separate  them

now lace them up!

for the string , you can use anything you want. 

they should look like this

here I used shoe laces and the total amount of shoe lace I used is about 12 meters. 

Around 6 per leg. 

that being said  everybody's height is different along with the space between each hole and the width separating each side

for reference, I am about 5'8 and the there is about an inch between holes. 

now you're done!

13 DIY gothic corset swallowtail reconstruction.

last night I had a sudden thought to make this too large corset that I had lying around into a corset with swallowtails..(I'm not quite familiar with my terminology. Although experienced sewers would probably want to hit me for more than this issues in my post)

anyways,
I took this corset and cut off it from the back where the boning was.

then I cut out 4 strips

the 2 shown here will be the front strips.

I choose this velvet/faux suede material (again. forgive my lack of knowledge of fabrics) on purpose because I hate hemming
and it has nice structure that would fall quite nicely for this design

this is the 2 front strips and the 2 back strips
here I placed all the fabric according to the position that I needed to sew them in.

the two front pieces I sewed them directly onto the corset. (As to what method, I think I'd rather not have a steamstress murder me with her iron for telling you guys the wrong infromation. thanks. )

for the back pieces, I decided I needed a zipper but you don't need it if you don't want


now, you should have 2 sides on the front piece that will connect with the the 2 sides from the back.

measure place your grommets then use ribbon and lace them up

I love how this project I didn't have to measure anything because the ribbon makes things adjustible! (unless somehow u made things too big...)

here is what you should have

I sewed an extra piece of black fabric under the front lace up because I thought that it might be too much with 3 lace up sections.

and DONE ~

12 DIY spiked flower garter with really cheap materials

So, the other day I had this wonderful idea to make some of these creepy yeha inspired spiked garters that I've seen everywhere.

obviously my version is not nearly as great as hers but its easy, fun, and most importantly CHEAP. 

lets get started! 

first we need  some elastic, needle and thread 

next, you measure your elastic around your leg at the part each stip will be lying 

you'll need 3 pieces 

make sure your elastic isn't too tight or you might cut off your circulation 

sew each of the three peices together to form a loop

it doesn't have to be neat since you will be covering it up with more elastic 

here is 2 of the 3 loops I sewn together

this will be the basic structure of your garter 

next you will need 2 peices of elastic measuring from the end  loop

then sew together and you get this~

the least about of visible sewing neesd, 

don't forget to repeat for the back

I

next you attach on the third elastic

shove it inside between top and bottom loops then sew at all the parts that they touch 

make sure that  your 3rd elastic is not crooked!

time to stud!

now mark all the places to put them studs 

and here is the end result!

I also decided to put the roses  down

11. What to do when you get home and realize you just bought the exact same thing

If you have a terminal illness called shoppaholicitis then I'm sure you have probably bought some things that looked somewhat similar.

Yes. I confess

and I ended up buying two pairs of slightly different black flatform boots.

curse you itchy hands that just want to throw money all day.

but have no fear I fixed my problem by slighly customizing these boots with a slight DIY

The first pair was my YRU bloq boots in black
fabulous for a cheapy like me
got them for 30 bucks at urban outfitters

When I bought them, they came with another set of grey laces . I decided that the grey laces gave the shoes more dimension so I switched them. Then I decided to attach some chains and charms with some old necklaces by looping them between two lace holes and

viola.
new sparkling shoes.

The other pair I bought online from an off brand. I thought that they were going to be longer than these ones but nope, they were almost the exact same... so... I decided to make these my sharp pointy boots.

I got these spikes from online also. I think they were either 40mm or 50mm  but either one, they are pretty long 

So this is the end of my post today