DIY Leather Bag with Wooden Sides !

Leather handbag with wooden sides. I so adore this minimalist chic look.  Is it possible to make it your self ? YUP ! Yes, you can !! I am so excited to hack this !

I did the wooden sides twice. The first time, I  glued 2 plywood sticks together, thinking I could just hammer the straps onto the sides. Turns out all the nails I have were  2 cm long, so that didn’t work. I was about to take out the drill, thinking this is going to get messy with a lot of blood. Then it dawned on me that I can just saw notches into the craft sticks before gluing them together.

Here’s what it looks like :

 

Bonus, I found the leather in the scrap bin so it cost me only 10 baht ( 30 cents ) and the craft plywood costs 65 baht a pack ( $ 2 for 8 sticks ) . SUPER DUPER.

Here’s the video tutorial:

Notes and tips :

• when positioning the nails, make sure they won’t “bump” into each other, cuz you’ll be nailing from both the front and back. And the bottom.
• hammering nails onto the bottom is tricky. Get extra hands or if using a clamp, make sure you protect the leather by wrapping it with some fabric. I learned.
• when punching the hole for the stud, if your hole punch is not large enough, just slowly punch around the circumference of the hole to widen it.

I’m so excited with this DIY and I hope you like it !  There are so many ways to change the look just by playing with the wooden sides, maybe stain it ? add multiple notches ? increase the width ? If this sparks your imagination, please tell me about it !