If scrapbooking is not your bag, you might prefer Sherri Haab’s Designer Style Handbags. One thing a woman can always use is another purse, and as Haab notes, making your own designer handbags is inexpensive and provides a means of artistic expression as well as function. Her book has three main sections: Getting Started, Sew Easy Bags and No-Sew and Embellished Bags. Getting Started guides you through chapters like Choosing Fabrics, Basic Tools and Closures and Fasteners. Sew Easy Bags takes you step-by-step through the creation of several handbags from the classic fabric tote to the glam evening bag, with large, clear photos and text demonstrating and explaining each point. The last section contains two of my personal favorites, the cigar box purse and the altered book purse. The first is self-explanatory add a handle and your own creative touches to a cigar box and voila! a funky, sturdy box bag. The second makes use of the outside covers on old cloth-bound books. The pages are replaced with a fabric insert. Handles and any desired decorations are added and you’re ready to book it to your next appointment (without breaking your pocketbook!).
Valiant Women is a vital and engrossing attempt to correct the record and rightfully celebrate the achievements of female veterans of World War II.
