You can customize your homemade genuine leather handbag to suit your style in many different ways - especially with a creatively designed swap flap!

Whether with Trapunto letters or shapes, iron-on pictures, your own lining fabric, leather colors, metal accessories, foil cuts, rivets, beads, micro-mosaic, embroidery, ... There are (almost) no limits to your creativity!

As a small source of inspiration we have put together some of our community makes for you, using them as examples to show you different types and techniques of customization. 

The Trapunto technique

Let's start with a type of personalization that you're probably already familiar with: The Trapunto technique. Trapunto describes the Process in which leather is deformed in this waythat underlying layers with letters, figures or patterns are visible. The contour is then worked out even further with a folding bone or edge shaper so that the three-dimensional effect has an even stronger effect. This craft is also known as "Bombing".

The Trapunto technique is Very easy to use and a great way to personalize your leather accessories once again. The different Letters, shapes or patterns according to your wishes cut out of leather fiber fabric. Then glue the pattern mirror-inverted onto the back of your leather flap and shape the pattern on the front of the leather using a edge shaper from. 

Please note that your lettering or shape must be Not too small or delicate otherwise molding will be difficult. Depending on Flexibility of the leather the 3D effect is sometimes a little less noticeable or more extreme - you get the best Trapunto results with for suede leather, nappa leather, smooth leather in general and also for grained leather of our standard collection.

Own lining fabric

You can also easily adapt your homemade leather bag to your style by using your own lining. However, there are a few things to bear in mind, as not every fabric is suitable for this.

When choosing your own lining fabric, you must test whether it is actually suitable before processing: 

• Does the leather adhesive stick to the lining and does it not push through the fabric?
• Does the blunt needle come through the fabric well so that you can sew with the saddler's seam without difficulty?
• Are you sure the fabric won't fray too much at the end so that you can finish and seal the edges well? 

If these three criteria are met, nothing stands in the way of processing your own lining fabric. For example, we have tested cotton poplin and cotton canvas, both of which would be ideal. In our video tutorial, we show you how you can process your own fabric even if it doesn't meet all the criteria.

There we also explain how to work with an iron-on interlining and why we would advise against working with Vliesofix - in general, you should never apply heat directly to the leather.

 

Decoration with metal details

In addition to decorating your leather bag with a special metal ornament as a clasp, you can also add further accents with metal details. 

For example, you can attach a wide variety of rivets in different patterns and shapes. If you use our rivets, it is best to use a rivet press to attach them. Some rivets can also be simply screwed in place without the need for any additional tools.

Decoration with iron-on pictures

To add very special messages and pictures to your bag flap, you can also attach iron-on pictures to the inner lining.

You can apply iron-on decals either with a suitable press or with an iron.When using an iron, you should not push it back and forth on the iron-on picture, but only press from above, lift the iron if necessary and press on the next spot. We can particularly recommend the iron-on decals from our dear colleague Anke from Cherrypicking Studio.

If you are working with iron-on transfers for the first time, only use them on the inner lining, not on the leather!

Flap embroider

As a special eye-catcher, you can also embroider your bag flap, for example on the inner lining of the flap, as a special WOW effect when you open your bag. Or you can even embroider the leather! 

You can either have your sewing machine embroider it or embroider it yourself by hand and then finish it according to the instructions in your DIY box.

The Embroidery stabilizer with the floral pattern (middle picture above) comes from our cooperation with Louise von @lieselou.diy. If it is still available, you can find it here. The instructions also include links to the individual video tutorials for the various stitches, as well as material recommendations for the embroidery thread, needle and embroidery hoop. 

Some leathers, such as nappa leather or velour, can also be embroidered by machine - but try this out first on a scrap of leather or an inconspicuous area, as every leather and every sewing machine behaves differently.

Particularly special techniques

In general, there are no limits to your creativity when customizing your swap flap. You can really let off steam and try out lots of different things. 

We have a few inspirations and suggestions for your next pocket flap: 

• Transform your flap into a leather mosaic artwork with the help of leather scraps (like the picture on the right above) or put individual leather snippets together to create a new picture, as with leather marquetry. It is important that the leather scraps have the same thickness so that it results in an even surface. You can simply glue the leather scraps together with the leather glue from your DIY box.
• You can also make small pendants or patches from leftover leather and then sew them onto your bag flap, for example a small flower or your favorite animal.
• Do you like crafting with small beads or even mosaic stones? Then why not combine your hobby with your next favorite bag, like in the two example pictures on the left by Barbara from @micromosaicart .
• As well as using iron-on pictures, you can even plot the inner lining and leather. We did a cool YouTube live with Plottertante some time ago. 
• A particularly nice way to personalize your flap is to use leather paint. You can apply small and large works of art directly to the leather of your bag. It's best to use thin paintbrushes and special leather paint, but our edge paint also works.
• If you are really brave, you can also incorporate leather straps into your swap flap by making small cuts in the leather with a cutter knife or a slitting iron and then threading leather straps through. We recommend that you create a template for the pattern before you cut into the leather. 

Incidentally, many of these creative techniques have one thing in common. They only use a leather frame on the pocket flap to then attach the customization within this frame on a lining fabric or other carrier material, for example. You can use the inner frame of your pocket flap as a template and then cut out a frame from the outer part according to this. Of course, you can also personalize directly on the leather. 

We are very happy about all the creative results and would like to thank Nastja from @diy_eule once again, who called for the swap flap challenge in her YouTube video. 🥰