Make your own multi-compartment handbag

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My hoarder nature has lead me to collecting all sorts of bags: free bags from magazines, complimentary bags from merchants, reusable shopping bags, shoe bags, etc. I do use some of them for my food shopping, but one can only carry so many bags so a lot of these bags end up hibernating in the cabinet.

Since my last multi-compartment handbag announced its death, I have yet to find one that looks decent and serves up to my expectation of a handbag. Whilst waiting for Bag O Mr. Right to turn up, I've been using some of these free shopping bags, but there is one problem: they all don't come with any compartments.


I thought maybe I could create something out of what I have in the house. These are what I used:
  1. A good sized black shopping bag I received free from a magazine about 5 years ago (I took off all the sequins on the bag to keep for future craft use)
  2. A small black M)phosis (a clothing label in Asia) shopping bag
  3. 1 of the 2 non-woven black shoe bags that came with a pair of shoes I bought in Singapore
  4. A truly ugly-looking foil coated complimentary shopping bag from Visa
  5. A few black zippers taken out from old clothes, been lying in my sewing box for month, or years
Here is what I did:
Folded and sewed the M)phosis shopping bag onto the outside of the large bag, to make a zipped-up pocket.


Sewed 2 other zippers onto the 2 shoe bags, then sewed them onto the inside of the large bag, on the back of the outer pocket (A).
The truly ugly-looking silver bag is now sewn to the middle of the large black bag, to serve as a big compartment within (B), whilst dividing the bag into 2 more compartments. I've also sewn a pair of velcro strips onto the Visa bag to close it up. I can fit so many things in it, even a standard size glossy magazine.

I now carry this bag almost everywhere I go: work, shop, leisure. It took me about a whole day to do all the stitching by hand, but I spent absolutely nothing whilst clearing off clutter (5 useless bags) so it was really worth the hassle.

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