Silhouette Mini Tutorial: Circle Handle Purse Variations

Thanks for all your support on the Purse with Circle Handle cutting file I uploaded into the Silhouette Store the other day. I thought since you seemed to like that one, that I'd play with some variations.

These variations add a little character to your purse, as we all know, the perfect purse makes the outfit. Now it will be easy to choose exactly what you need. 

If you want to see other purse tutorials on my blog, here are a few others:

Bucket Purse

Multiple Purse Tutorial

Purse Gift Card holder

Circle Purse

Two Strap Purse

Barrel Purse

These purses go together much in the same way as the circle handle flower purse I showed you on my blog the other day. The base of all of these purses go together like the flower circle handle purse, so  click here to see those instructions to get you started, then come back here to finish up with the details.
Today, I will just show you how I assembled the diamond lattice circle handle purse; since it has a significant variation.  The clover and the floral lace versions should be easy to figure out, so I don't have further instructions on those--just add the front layer pieces with glue and brads. So consider this a "mini-tutorial" or part B of the other tutorial.

You will need a Silhouette cutting machine to cut these files out. 

For those of you who are new to my blog, and may not have heard about the Silhouette electronic cutting machine (the machine I used to cut this file out,) I put together a product review at this link. You can read other's reviews of the machine here.

File Set Up in the Studio Software:

First, when you open this file, you will notice that I did not duplicate some of the main pieces. This was a decision I made in order to make the file smaller in size and easier to edit. Sometimes too many pieces hanging off the live cutting area will get lost when you ungroup them, so I wanted to try to keep most of the parts in view. You will notice that some of the pieces have instructions like "cut 2" or  "cut 4." So you will need to copy and paste some of the parts a few times to get the number that you need. Just move what you want to cut first into the live cutting area. The mini flowers are optional, and you can cut as few or as many as you would like. I attached a few mini flowers with turquoise brads and alternated with silver brads. If you are choosing not to use the mini flowers, you can ungroup the purse front, and select just the brad holes to delete them. I made them in their own group so you could select all of them at the same time.

1. Put brads through the itty bitty flowers. You will see a tiny hole in the center of each flower that was cut by your silhouette to be a guide for your brads. Ink the edges of the flowers if you wish with a small stamping ink pad, like ColorBox Cat's Eyes. Hint: It's easier to ink the edges after the brads go in. You can hold onto the end of the brad, and turn it with your fingers to easily ink all the edges.

2. If you opted not to do any flowers, just simply glue the front diamond pattern piece onto the purse front that has the little "teeth" around it. That's the only different thing for those of you going this route, then you would follow the directions in the other post.

3-4. If you do choose to add the flowers or brads, here's the thing about this file. I was thinking if you poke several brads through the front, you are not going to necessarily want to see the mess on the back. So what I did to prevent that, was just put the brads through the top layer of the purse. Look for the centering dots on both the diamond front piece, and poke your flowers through. 

5. Now that the brads are in, we'll glue that piece to the purse front with all the "teeth" on it. Make sure to use a good paper glue that will hold well and not warp your paper. Put glue around all the edges, and also dot it around on the backside between the brads so that it doesn't buckle when you adhere it. Smooth it into place, taking care to see that all the edges are lined up and sealed.

6. After it is dry (only a few minutes if you use a good paper glue like Tombow) then fold down all the teeth. 

7. Actually this photo was supposed to go between photos 4 and 5. It's just showing the diamond layer smoothed on nicely.

8. Do these steps twice to make a front and back to your purse. You may opt to do a plain back if you wish. 

9. Now head over to this post for the rest of the instructions.

I'd love to see what you create! Please feel free to post your projects on my Facebook page here.

Question for you...

Do you have a favorite purse? Is there something you would like me to use as inspiration for another paper purse cutting file? I won't duplicate your purse, but rather use it as a spring-board for a paper variation. I'd love to see what you like in the way of purses. Bring it on!