From Handbag to Hair Clip

Hi, everyone!  I've been carrying the same pocketbook for a while now, and, to be honest, it was kind of falling apart.  My mom just bought me a new one (Thanks, mom!), but I didn't want to throw my old purse away.  It was such a cute animal print!  So I decided to do a trash to treasure craft with it.  I initially planned to make a necklace, but then I decided halfway through the project that I wanted to make a hair clip.  I was inspired by this tutorial from Mrs. Priss.
Here is my bag before.  

Let's all pause for a moment of silence because the next step is painful!...................I cut up the bag.  I felt bad doing it, but it was going to have to go in the trash because the straps were messed up.  (Can you tell I'm still trying to convince myself I did the right thing?)

I then made a card stock template of petals.  I traced the petals on the back of the pleather/vinyl and cut them out.  I made different sizes, but ended up only using the medium size.  I cut out seven of the medium sized petals.

I pinched the narrow end of each petal together and tried to hot glue it, but the pleather/vinyl was just not sticking, so I ended up sewing them on my machine.

After I pinched and stitched all seven petals, I glued them together with hot glue.  The glue worked this time because the back of the pleather/vinyl is a felt-type material.

Of course, then I needed something to cover up that ugly center portion of the flower, so I took a vintage clip-on earring from my vintage jewelry stash and cut the clip off of it.

I glued the earring to the center of the flower with a generous amount of hot glue.  I then got out an alligator hair clip I purchased from Walmart and cut a circle out of felt.

I sandwiched the felt circle between the alligator clip.  I hot glued the flower on the felt circle, sandwiching the top of the clip between the circle and the flower.

Then amazingly, a torn up handbag was transformed into a cute, fashionable hair clip.  (I had everything on hand except the alligator clips, and the whole pack cost a little more than a dollar.)  I adore the combination of the animal print and vintage earring.  It's so me!

  Now I just have to put together an outfit to wear with it so I can post another picture to give you the full effect! :)