Creating your Own Travel Accessories

Hi Everyone

Wishing everyone a Happy Diwali in advance. Holidays or Trips are a period of super excitement and so is packing for a trip. From choosing the bags that one would like to carry to what to stuff inside them. Hence, today am here trying to showcase some new raw materials that The Craft Shop has in stock to create some very interesting travel accessories. This gives you a chance to carry unique and your style of accessories while traveling.

 Project 1:

 Lets start by looking at the raw materials we will need.

1. Canvas Bag
2. Decoupage Tissues/Papers of choice
3. Fabric Paints or Multipurpose paints
4. Fabric ModPodge
5. Brushes/Sponges for Paints and ModPodge
6. Stencils of choice
7.  Plastic Sheets
8. Rough piece of cardboard
9.  Craft Scrapper or Credit card or Plastic Ruler
10. Ruler (in case you are not using one for point 9 above)
11. Pencil
12. Container for water
13. Palette

 My Canvas bag and the tissue that I shall use.

 I wanted to use the grapes and not the apple so by using water and brush I tore the napkin to the design that I would use.

I have ensured to tear out all straight edges as that helps in blending the napkin.

A tissue napkin is usually 2-3 ply and the most common mistake is to not remove them. We just need the top layer and hence its important that we separate all layers below.

Since this is a drawstring bag, the bag at the end was getting pulled and hence not giving me a straight plain surface to work on. So I decided to untie the knots.

Place the tissue where you want to stick it as per your design and mark the edges with a help of a pencil lightly just to give you the idea on the area you have to cover with Mod Podge. 

*You will come to know why I did this in the later steps

Now with help of Fabric Mod Podge (its much sticker than the normal Mod Podge that we use and yes, we need a Fabric Mod Podge as we are dealing with Fabric Canvas Bag) I shall stick the tissue on the canvas bag. I am not applying gesso or white paint below as the canvas bag is more or less white. If you are doing this on a coloured canvas bag, you will need to paint the areas on which the tissue will be placed. However, this step can be skipped if you are using decoupage papers.

 After applying the Fabric Mod Podge on the canvas all over the marked area, I have placed the tissue very lightly on it. I have taken a plastic sheet and placed it over the tissue.
*Never try and apply Mod Podge  on the tissue it will tear off as its very thin. Always apply on the fabric and hence I had marked the area of application  above.

Over the plastic sheet, with the help of a craft scrapper I remove the air bubbles if any and also this method helps to give a crease free tissue.

* Never try and do this directly on the tissue without the plastic sheet, you will tear off the tissue. 

Look at the crease free tissue on the canvas! Apply a generous coat of Fabric Mod Podge over it and seal it.

As per my design in mind, I wanted to divide the bag into two colour schemes taking inspiration from the tissue itself and hence with the help of a ruler and pencil I drew the lines to mark the division.

To protect the paints from spreading into unwanted areas I have applied washi tape to areas that I wanted to protect.

I have chosen the paints as per the tissue and I prefer using a sponge to blend colours. If brush works for you please go ahead with that.

Mid way I realised a bit of red would look nice as the lower part had a darker version of orange like burnt orange shade.

This is how one side looked after painting

For the other side I used yellow and white 

Now with the help of stencils I shall fill in the blank spaces as per my desire.

After being satisfied with the design I have given the entire surface two generous coats of Fabric Mod Podge allowing 3-4 hours of drying time between the two coats.

Project 2:

Things needed:

1. Canvas Pouch

2. Decoupage paper/tissue of choice

3.Fabric Mod Podge

4. Brush for Mod Podge

5. Steadtler Permanent marker

6. Rough piece of cardboard

7. Plastic Sheets

This is the decoupage paper I shall use from Craftreat.

 I have selected this strip that I want to use from the paper and I love the canvas feel so will leave it in that colour itself. If you are someone you prefers that too, this is a super easy and classy way of creating your own bags and pouches.

If you notice I have mentioned a rough cardboard piece too in both my projects. I have taken the rough piece of cardboard and wrapped it in plastic to place it between the two layers of the

bag/pouch. This protects the paints and mod podge from sticking to the other side of the fabric

I have applied Fabric Mod Podge to the back of the paper.

* Unlike tissue paper can withstand the brush strokes of  Mod Podge being applied to it.

 After that I have taken my Staedtlet Permanent Pen and made an outline around the design to give it a little definition. After that I have applied two generous coats of Fabric Mod Podge allowing 3-4 hours of drying time between the two coats (over the design area only )and sealed it.

Project 3:

As I said the store has some amazing raw materials. Some are plain keychains on which decoupage can be done.

I have taken one of them and as the base is already white I have skipped the gesso part. Just applied Mod Podge and tissue. Sanded off the corners and applied two coats of Mod Podge over and sealed it.


Hope you like the projects and share your creations with us.

Happy Crafting
 Saumya

Products Used from Store:
1.Bags,Pouches and Keychain.
2. Decoupage Tissue
3. Craftreat Decoupage Paper
4. Folkart Multisurface Paints
5. Fabric Mod Podge