How To Save €35

Saving money, spending less is not just my goal, many are trying to cut costs and spend smartly. This is a good thing, especially now when everyone has been affected of the economical consequences of this crazy pandemic.

The whole thing started when I bought a pair of red shoes. During the lockdown, when all the non-essential stores were closed, many were selling online, offering extremely good deals, plus free shipping, so I bought two pair of shoes. One I had to send back as instead of orange I got a light brown and that wasn't my choice, so I chose this red one.

You know how Google ads work, right? You click one add and then you're flooded with similar adds/items for weeks as Google is analyzing your behavior and thinks you're interested. This is how I got flooded with shoes ads, among which I saw a very nice bag I could not take my eyes off of.

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It was love at first sight, perfect for my red shoes and blue jeans, plus a white shirt or a blue T-shirt.

This is a Rieker Ladies Everyday Handbag, Model: H1066-80, perfect for my Rieker shoes. I love the brand but to tell you honestly, it's not exactly cheap or acceptable,so up until now I was just looking at them, had no heart to pay so much for a pair of shoes. The bag is no different as this one on the photo costs £39.99, (on sale as the original price was £49.99). £49.99 is €55.83, £39.99 would be €44.66. I could have ordered it for €37.80 with free shipping, but that is still a fortune for a bag, that is made of leather-look carryall. The white part is particularly sensible, you can ruin it on day one and then there's nothing you can do about it.

Having these thoughts in my mind, plus knowing I can make a bag for myself any day, I could not pay that much for it, so the only option left was to make one for myself. Make no mistake, I knew I could not recreate the same exact bag but that wasn't my intention. I just wanted a bag that goes well with my red shoes and blue jeans.

It took me a day to figure out what kind of blue I wanted. It wasn't an easy decision, but in the end I decided to go with this very dark blue. The red one was given, that gave me no headache as that was the only one I had and I already knew in the second hand shop that would be perfect with my shoes. Instead of white, I chose this light cream.

It took me another 3 days to figure out the design and how to put the colors together so none of them would seem to much or too little. As I've specified above, I didn't want the same style, it would have been hard too. So I came up with the one you see in the first photo.

The photo above is like sketch, just placed the pieces together to see how it looks.

This is already sewed together. The back is plain blue, there was no need to complicate that with mixing colors.

This is the back, made of three pieces.

The bag has three pockets inside and one outside, with a zipper. It closes with a zipper.

All the fabrics you see here are used clothes, The jeans I got from the second hand shop, the lining is made of shirts, also used, the only new here is the zipper, interfacing and the thread.

If I were to calculate the costs, the fabrics and the zipper costed me around €2, the interfacing was around €0.5, so if I don't calculate the work that went into it, I'd say I've saved €35. It's not like Rieker but it's unique and mine! Handmade with love 😁

I was told it looks like a Tommy Hilfiger as those are tricolor, red white and blue.

I don't know about you but I really love this design and the color combination, so I'm planning to make more, just need to put my hand on some good quality red denim or other red fabric that looks like this. Also planning to do some of other colors. Let's see what I can find that can be mixed with blue, or even black.

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