Irene Schlesinger

Tote Tale

The other day, I spilled a bottle of juice in my purse. Don’t carry juice in your purse is a lesson now learned. My longtime generic tote is finally retired. My phone was old and didn’t survive the juicy depths of my tote. I’d been carrying around an iPhone 4 since whenever it came out. Time for an upgrade, but only because they don’t sell 4s anymore. Oops, before I digress further, on with the blog.
Scott suggested I design my own tote. While he meant sew and embroider, I took a short cut and found a website that uploads images to print on a bag. They do the constructing. Fine with me because my life is unusually active lately.
There are many sites that will personalize clothing and objects with the images of the client’s choice. I’ve had a design of mine printed on a handbag before at Vida.

Here’s a bag using my design from before. This was made at

https://shopvida.com/

The bag was nice but did not have the durability to foray ahead with. I’m a messy restless traveler and it’s incredible the old tote lasted so long.
I liked the tote at Bags of Love.com and the price seems right for a vinyl tote that will be dragged around everywhere. I can’t say I had an easy time navigating their design features. Not only am I a messy, restless traveler but I’m as thick as it gets trying to do things online like this.
Before designing an outline online of where to place my photo images of my artwork, I decided to filter the photos first. Filtering changes the artwork up in a way that keeps my original lines and design but changes the look of the texture.
I made a collage of my artwork using filtered and unfiltered images for the front of the tote.

Unfiltered photo of ‘Daydreamer”. Embroidery on canvas with paper.

And here is ‘Daydreamer’ recreated with filters.

I am a longtime paying subscriber at https://dreamscopeapp.com/ – BUT, You don’t have to pay or sign up to use the many filters they offer for free.
By filtering my embroideries, I revisit the joy of re-creating my art without having to do anything but click a filter, though I often will tweak the image further with my computer.
But, I don’t only filter my embroideries and paintings, I also put lots of photos of my installations thru. On the back of the tote is a filtered photo of an installation I created years ago in my front yard.


These Dreamers were made from concrete in plastic molds during a heatwave. They are still out there.
Through a filter.

I’m amazed to report the purse has already arrived from England! I only ordered it about 5 days ago. I already am using it. The images are perfectly clear and I think it will wear well for quite awhile despite my messy, restless traveling about.
I’m enjoying the reaction to it and now have a list of items to personalize, starting with a case for the iphone that is replacing the one that drowned in
juice. What a world!!!

The overhead light is dulling the colors. The tote is nice and bright.
Dreamers on the back.

Published by Irene Schlesinger

Hey There! My book "Artful Embroidery On Canvas!", was published in 2020. Thanks for checking out my blog! It's a mix of projects, reports on creativity and whatever else I may have to say. I'm a San Francisco Bay Area-based mixed medium artist who is especially interested in embroidery, installations and all that’ll art for art’s sake! UPDATE: My embroidery has been on hiatus since February 2023 which was when my husband started to feel ill. Sadly, he passed in March 2023 and so, the blog veered into a more personal direction. I'm ending my art hiatus later this September. Life has become a bit complicated but I will be back to blogging more on art and still describing my daily life as an artist, a woman, a mother, a daughter and struggling widow. Thanks for reading along.

Categories UncategorizedTags , , , ,
%d bloggers like this:
search previous next tag category expand menu location phone mail time cart zoom edit close