Mother's Day SUITCASE from the Grandchildren

It's almost semi-officially summer. Getting ready to fly, sail, motor to a road less traveled. For some of those treks an appropriate container is necessary.

Last year I pretty much tore up my traveling suitcase using it to cart my vendor products back and forth to the market.

I bought a new suitcase that claimed 3 pieces. Three pieces are not what they were years ago. Each piece fits within the larger piece. But what do you expect for twenty nine bucks? All of it is pretty generic.

None of it screams, "Mama, get me off the carousel!" when it's unloaded from the plane.

 So in order to distinguish one person's luggage from another, people tie on colorful ribbons, place stickers and a lot of other ingenious ideas. I'd forget what color ribbons I'd put on my luggage or either like someone else's ribbon colors and pick up the wrong suitcase. ( At this point in time I guess it should no longer be referred to as a suitcase. I think those are things of the past. It's just luggage)

I decided to go a different route with my red, canvas, bag.


Sharpies are good but don't expect much from a white Sharpie onto a dark fabric.
I had to go over this speech bubble 3 or four times before it was remotely visible.

 Using a white Sharpie I outlined a speech bubble near the zipper of the bag. I was hoping I could fill the entire bubble in white later going back and filling in with black text. That was not to be.


I'd been to several sites to get ideas and instructions. DIY Network

suggested house paint.

Sidebar: While sitting in the waiting room at the opthamologist's,* I was thumbing through the May issue of Family Circle and came across a coupon for a FREE sample of Valspar paint.

I pinched the coupon and felt guilty as my name was being called and confessed to the technician that I'd torn the coupon from the magazine. She forgave me.

Don't use $ Store tape. It's less tacky and my paint bled underneath it.

Using painter's tape I taped off the areas I didn't want painted (lotta good that did me) and proceeded to paint the speech bubble yellow. The bag was absorbing the paint but not giving good coverage so I added textile medium to the paint as done at the loopylady11BTS tutorial . It still didn't help much. Since the inside of the bag is vinyl (remember it's cheap)  and I'd stuffed it with plastic bags for loft to paint on no paint seeped through.

My humorous take on a stowaway inside the luggage. Hope TSA finds it funny.

 Since the tape didn't really do its job I tried sponge outlining the bubble with black acrylic paint to try and neaten it up. Nada.

 Then I used a square makeup sponge dipped in red acrylic to neaten up the black outside edge of the bubble. Double Nada.

 At this point I  was going to be satisfied with whatever I ended up with. I don't think I will have any problem identifying my suitcase 

luggage.

The text was done with a black Sharpie with highlights using other Sharpie colors.

I'm Ok with it.

If anyone asks, I'll say my grandchildren did it as a Mother's Day gift. They don't need to know that I don't have grandchildren.

*I'm using a larger font while undergoing treatment after complications from cataract surgery. It'll be this way for a while or maybe from now on.     :)