180: tutorial - galaxy purse

You guys already know we're galaxy obsessed right? I mean, look around on our blog & check out all those nebulas!



Galaxy prints have been on trend for a while now & a lot of DIYers are starting to paint or bleach their own galaxy designs on clothes & shoes. I've been wanting to space-up something myself, so I'm gonna show you how I did it with a purse of mine.


Here's the purse that I decided to paint. It's an old leather one that I picked up from a thrift shop for under $5 & I used to love it (it's a great size & is great for just slinging over my shoulder) but it's so plain.


Here's what you'll need:
- Paints. I used speedball fabric inks in black, blue, red, yellow, glowing green, white & yellow
- Paint palette & a fine paint brush (not shown oops!)


So I spread out my purse to reveal the entire surface that I planned on painting.
I removed the studs for painting it... but because of the damage they had left, I put them back on afterwards.


I put a thin coat of black all over the surface & before it dried, I added globs of red, blue & some green. The reason I put the coat of black on the black bag was just so that I would be able to create a blended effect with the bright colours so they wouldn't have such contrasting edges.


So then I proceeded to just fingerpaint in circular patterns! I smudged the red & blue around into the black... kinda looks a bit van gogh-esque. haha
I kept each of the colours in a sort-of concentrated circle because the effect that I was aiming for was inspired by the Trifid Nebula:




I wasn't able to take a photo of the process here because it was a bit messy but I basically began mixing some white into each of those circles of colour. The red transformed into more of a pink & the blue became more baby blue too. Also, I found that keeping the paint tacky (do NOT dilute with water!) and using your fingers to just dab it gave it that more space-dusty effect.


Then I took a wet paint brush & dipped in black to make the veiny looking black lines in the centres of the colour circles.


& I continued making those black "veins" on the back of the purse too.


& ta-da! That's the background!
Don't worry too much about being perfect. It took a lot of fudging around to get the right effect I wanted & it's easy to just blend away mistakes.


Now take a glob of white & yellow & some toothpicks


You just have to dip your toothpick in & dab it all over to make "stars"


Some may say... that's too many stars. I got carried away.


Now pick a random star... and make a wish.
and THEN take some white paint & make it look like a starburst by drawing a quick cross over it!


make sure it's pointy & neat!


& there's my nebula masterpiece! Let it dry, yo.
& you can do this to just about anything... your shoes, purses, your hats, your... cats. idk. Show me if you do any of those!

& there it is! Another galactic thing in my wardrobe!
Good thing with a purse, you can wear it everyday without people accusing you of not doing laundry. I MEAN.... not that that ever happens to me... um.

xoxo