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!

Chanel Inspired: Striped Sweater

Okay, so this is another one that's really loosely based on Chanel. Anyways, I've been seeing sweaters for fall and winter that have shorter sleeves than you'd expect. I'd been working on this sweater for about two weeks, off and on, whenever my husband and I watched T.V.  I made this sweater from the leftover yarn I still had after the "Baby Boom of '13" as I'm calling it. (Of the 250 people at my church, 10 women will have had babies this year. I made them all mother/baby hat sets, and I had a ton of leftover yarn. Hence, the sweater.)

Basically, I knitted five panels. Two sleeves, two large panels for the body, and one for the neck. Then, stitched them all together. 

(I did other things too, like tapering in the body panels at the top to avoid the shoulders hanging off, folding the "fabric" over to create tubular edges, and tapering the top hems of the sleeves so they hang at an angle.)

This sweater is super bulky, so I will definitely not travel with it! It takes up almost half my carry on!

I lifted the sleeve to show how I matched up the colors on the seams on the sides.

The End!