Becky Striepe
How brilliant is this?
Crafter Mandy Younce sent me some photos of these purses she and her husband designed. Each one was custom made using Formica samples and vintage fabric.
Mandy used to work in a lumber yard and hated witnessing the quantities of raw materials going to waste. Who knew that lumber yards tossed more than just wood scraps! She started collecting Formica countertop samples and turned them into awesome purses.
The technique looks similar to making a book purse. You’d just need to assemble your samples to resemble the book cover, either with very strong glue or some kind of grommet situation. It looks like she used hinges at the bottom to make the “spine.” So clever!
Mandy is a crafter and a musician originally from Chattanooga, Tennessee and is now living in Montana. When she and her husband aren’t designing awesome, repurposed purses they perform music under the name Hell City Kitty. If you want to keep up with Mandy, you can also check out her blog.
I bet the lumber yard is a treasure trove of craft supplies that would otherwise be headed to the landfill! Have you guys made anything crafty from these sorts of castoffs?
How can I contact Mandy?
Those are just great! I LOVE seeing how creative people can be with "unlikely" materials.
When scrapbookers started using paint chips in scrapbooking it created something of an uproar. I see a similarity here. If someone got the samples to use for a remodel and then didn't need them anymore then, that is a green practice however, if they went to their closest big box hardware store and got samples just to use for crafting, that is theft
Never seen anything like these – but they certainly are cute.