I get weird ideas sometimes.  I had an urge to buy an old piece of luggage and paint something on it.  I’ve learned to just go with it and see how it turns out.  I found this bag on Etsy for about $25.  (From Mail Order Vintage‘s shop specifically, if you want to search for some good stuff to alter.)  It looks like it’s never been used, so I’m not sure if I should think of it as new or vintage.

Here’s what it looked like when it arrived.  My daughters thought it was hideous, but I kind of like it’s offbeat salmon color.

I originally wanted to paint a quote on it, “Half the fun of travel is the aesthetic of lostness.”  But I got tired even thinking about cutting out a stencil like that, and the textured vinyl bag was going to give me fits trying to keep paint from oozing underneath a stencil.  Lots of curvy letters could be a nightmare!  I decided to keep things simple and cut a Twitter bird body and main section of branch from a piece of Contact paper.  I pressed it down as best I could against the grain of the vinyl.

Can you see it?

This just gave me the starting point, which I filled in with brown fabric paint, chosen because it’s flexible when dry.  The rest was freehanded after I carefully peeled off the Contact paper.  Sealed with a little matte varnish, I hope it will be durable.  In the next few months I’ll be traveling to Tennessee, North Carolina and New York, so we’ll see.

I’m happy to give something old a second chance, and happy to have a one-of-a-kind bag that suits me so well!