Monday, December 5, 2011

DIY Camera Bay

I really love my new camera purse! For a total of $25 (instead of $90 + shipping for the similar Jo Totes bag) I came up with a camera bag I love! Shopping for the purse was the hardest part. I wanted something with a base to it, a flat part on the bottom. It needed a zipper closure on top. Not too big, not too small! And, I am glad I ended up with a classic black exterior! Oh, and it had to have handles that were the perfect length. It's the worst when you can't get it over your shoulder comfortably.


Because it's black on the outside, I wanted to make it a party on the inside! So I got 1/2 yard of this fun upholstery fabric on sale for $5/yard at Joanns. Love it!




I really didn't follow any method in making this, I just took it one step at a time and it was done in about 3 hours. As with any project, it would go much faster if I made another, now that I know what I'm doing. I used a 1 inch foam for the base, and 1/2 inch foam for the sides and dividers. Measure, cut and fit the foam before sewing the fabric case.




Once you have your foam pieces cut and you've put in your camera body and lenses to make sure it all fits, then cut your fabric!




I sewed the two long sides right sides together first and then put in the foam- the case was about an inch bigger than the foam at this point. We have to leave fabric to connect the foam pieces!




Then I pinned the fabric right next to the foam. Next step, sew it up! I probably could have been more exact with this, but it turned out great, so no complaints :)






Once the sides were done, I just folded in the extra fabric at the ends and top-stitched them closed. Sewing is much less time consuming when you're not flipping things inside out and ironing and measuring all the time. (I do all those things normally, just not with this project!)




Then I tried velcro-ing (sp?) the 1/2 in sides to the 1 in base, but the velcro wouldn't stay attached to the fabric without velcro adhesive... I just had a lot of trouble with it. So I ended up taking that off and just did a basting stitch to connect the pieces together. It went very quickly, looks nice, and I think it will hold much better than velcro in the long run.



So this is the inside once the sides and dividers were attached.




And everything fits inside quite nicely :) There is a lot of space on the right side, I am considering adding a vertical divider, or I will just put miscellaneous things in that section.




I've read on photography forums that this is the best position to store your camera body- lens up! Any thoughts?



And there's the beauty:




Very excited not to lug my huge camera bag around when I'm downtown or when doing a mini session. (not a great pic of me, but it kind of shows the size of the bag.)


1 comment:

Heather said...

You are my hero. Wish I had the self confidence to tackle a project like that. You've seen my gray camera bag? Totally ghetto.