Wednesday, May 13, 2015

How to Fix an Ink Stain on Your Coach Purse....or...Dying a Coach Purse

I bought this beige Coach purse at a yard sale. It had lots of ink stains on it. "No problem!" I thought.
...Yeah...It ended up being a problem.
I searched the internet for ways to remove leather stains. I tried soap. Nothing. Rubbing alcohol. Nothing. Vinegar. Nothing.
So then I got into the harder stuff--and like drugs--the deeper I got, the more of a mess I was in. I tried nail polish remover...and...bleach! (WHAT??) So now I had an ink stained purse...that had all the shiny factory protective coating removed. Great.
Then I got the bright idea to buy Guardsman Leather Ink Stain Remover sticks. It's in the name, right? How could I go wrong? Yeah. After using them, I now had a waxy, sticky...yet infuriatingly STILL ink stained, protective coating-less mess.
I was going to give up, and it was making me mad, because it was a really nice purse. No holes or tears. I was mad because I had spent money. I was mad because I couldn't fix it. I was mad because the stuff that was supposed to fix it, didn't--plus costing more money! I was mostly mad because I thought I could make the purse better and had only made things even worse. Not acceptable!
Then I remembered that I still had half a jar of silver leather paint from the previous project that nearly gave me a heart attack: dying a pair of Chanel shoes.
I literally had nothing to lose, so I spent the next two or three hours painting my beige purse silver...and now it looks almost new. Yay for having a new warm weather purse! I am actually glad it's silver, because I don't like beige anyway! So there, Universe!
(The pictures are of this process, and I'm writing this from my phone, so it won't let me narrate them. You will just have to use your imagination.)
The End!

Thursday, May 7, 2015

Turning a Prom Dress into a Maxi Skirt

I bought this dress at a Goodwill. It's 100% silk, so I couldn't pass it up! I got it home and the top of it was too tight and the bow on the back was OBNOXIOUS, so I decided to make it into a maxi skirt. If you want to do this project, all I added was a piece of medium weight stretchy jersey that was an inch or two smaller than my waist but could stretch over my hips. I didn't even add elastic!