You can make a purse out of placemats.
You didn’t misread that. I’m being 100% serious. If you have a couple of woven placemats, a purse strap, and a way to put them together, you’ve got a purse.
Mariann with HGTV has a tutorial out for how to make one of these babies, and it couldn’t be easier.
Finding some cheap placemats is easy. You can usually find them at the dollar store, or in a large pack for relatively inexpensive. All of the materials are pretty cheap and easy to find. Here’s what you’ll need:
If you want your purse to be extra sturdy, you can sew your purse together with a sewing machine instead of using fabric glue.
All you need to do is glue or sew the edges of the placemat together, leaving one of the two smaller edges open.
As you’re gluing the longer sides, glue or sew in two loops of leather cord for the purse strap to go. Make this around the middle of the edges so the purse can fold in on itself and close.
Place something heavy over the placemats so they can dry, then you can fold the purse over and add your embellishment for the opening. Mariann glues on a jewelry ring and attaches a leather tassel she makes to the ring.
Once that’s all dry, you can attach your purse strap and it’s all ready to use! This placemat purse looks like a designer bag, and it’s so much cheaper. The best part? You get to tell people you made it!