Flower Power

Today's craft was more of a dry run for me. My family and I recently took a trip to Disney World a couple months ago. We had just bought a brand new camera for the trip and I made sure to bring it everywhere in order to capture all my dreams coming true =) Therefore my camera bag also became my purse, due to the fact I did not want to carry around 2 bags. Unfortunately, my camera bag is the perfect size for my camera only! The silver lining is that I probably ended up spending less money because I just didn't want to bother trying to fish my wallet out. Now, we are headed to Europe in less than a month and knowing that this could possibly be my one and only trip over seas I will be taking thousands of pictures. I probably won't even need a bag due to the fact my camera will not leave my hands. Never the less, I want a stylish camera bag/purse and don't want to pay high dollar for it. So I decided to just make my own. Anyway, to make a short story long... ha!

I really want to make a quality bag. Since I have never made one before and I have yet to get any foam in order to make it camera friendly, I decided to make a similar purse for practice.

I combined 3 different tutorial/patterns for this project:

First, I took a kit that I got on clearance from Walmart. I really only used it for the fabric and lining:

Second, I used 2 tutorials to help me build my bag.
I found this super cute Pleated Purse Tutorial for the basic structure.
And this helpful Lined Zippered Pouch to help me insert a zipper. I have been told that there are several Expert Pickpocketers in Europe so I don't want to give them easy access with just a button.

Last but not least, the kit provided extra little flowers.

At first I was just going to toss them, but then I had a great idea to make a pocket! =)
Using Steam-A-Seam I created a collage of them and ironed them onto the wrong side of some extra lining fabric I had.

Then, I just cut around the flowers and sewed it unto my lining. (Note: I did this before I sewed the whole bag together.)

And the finished project:

 Also, as you can see I made longer straps than showed in the the tutorial. Overall I like it, but I will say I am glad I did a dry run, so I can improve some things.

Hope you felt creativity was brewed... =)