It's in the bag

I've been carrying around a boxy looking camera bag for the last few years that I've used when out on quick trips. My current camera is bigger than the original camera that I bought the bag for and I often throw my flash in there too, and so the the gear has outgrown the bag now.

I may have seen one too many crime shows but I feel like those camera bags are just screaming to everyone, "There's a camera in here! Come and get me!". And considering how much my camera cost me it's not something I want to be advertising.

So what better solution than to disguise my camera in an every day handbag. Granted, nice looking handbags are screaming to be stolen too but from the outside it's hit and miss about what might be stored inside a handbag. If my regular handbag is stolen then the criminal is likely to get old receipts and maybe a baby food wrapper. Score to them! After all, I'd just be heading straight to a phone to cancel my credit card so it's really not something for me to worry about too much.

And wouldn't you know it, but other women have had the idea to create handbags that hold pro gear too! Some are so beautiful!

There's just one issue: the price tag. This one below, for example, is $199 USD.

 Say what?

Ok so I know that to some people that's not a big deal, but to me, it most definitely is! Camera handbags have a thriving trade and can command over $300 USD.

Gobsmacking!

And they don't lose their value when you look at Ebay.

So I took matters into my own hands.

I cruised the internet for some ideas and realised that with a little effort I could take care of the issue myself!

First stop, St Vinnies, where I picked up this bag for a grand total of $3.

Mmm, purple lining.

Next stop was Spotlight where I found myself some polyester wadding ($6.99 for the lot) and cotton sateen fabric ($10 for one metre).

I wasn't out looking for wadding but had to improvise when Spotlight didn't have any foam I could use.

My final stop was my mother-in-law's closets where she produced some packaging cardboad that originally had brand new sheets wrapped around it. 

Spotlight failed me again with some thick board so this is what I went with instead. See, I told you I'd be improvising.

And so the work began. Out with the garish purple lining which I carefully deconstructed so that I could use the old lining as a new pattern.

I cut out pieces of wadding large enough to wrap around the three cardboard pieces and then sewed the ends together.

I slid the cardboard inside the now sewn pieces and stuffed all three pieces inside the bag. One along the bottom and two along the large sides.

Then I carefully pieced the new lining together just the way the old lining had been contructed and sewed it together. I stuffed it inside the bag, over the polyester lining, and pinned it to the zip. You can see in the picture below where the old lining had been by following the purple thread. I left the purple thread there to remind myself that this was the right place to sew the new lining.

And then I very awkwardly arranged the bag around the sewing machine to get the zip and lining to the needle.

After stabbing myself several times with the pins (I hadn't considered the direction I was pinning them until after I began sewing) I was finished! I used white thread, so you can see how my sewing went with the zip and lining.

To be perfectly honest, when I make things for myself I'm not very fussy. To me it was important to have a good bag for my camera, and I don't particularly mind about the white thread. but I did remove the purple thread afterwards as I no longer needed it as a guide.

And so there it is! A nice and soft bag interior that I am very happy to put my camera directly into for soft safekeeping. It fits so easily along with other items if I wish. I also used it today to carry my infinity pad (like an ipad). And it also stands up by itself which it didn't do before.

The bag cost me $3. I used about a third of the lining so that was about $2.50. And I used about a third of the sateen which rounds to about $3.50. So the total cost was roughly $9.00!!!

Ahhh, so satisfying knowing that I did it myself and didn't have to spend what I consider to be a ludicrous amount of money.