With spare time because I’m not working much, I have taken on the renovation/upcycling of an old handbag. I loved the colour and the shape, but over time the paint has been scratched and pock-marked and it’s looking the worse for wear. It’s probably 20 years old but I couldn’t bear to throw it away whenever I last used it.
I asked Gemini AI what I might be able to do with it, and it suggested a few different solutions. I opted for a kind of “collage”solution (because collage is my thing).
AI has taken me to Spotlight and Bunnings several times, and I now have a massive collection of glues and things like acetone and isopropyl alcohol (pictured below). The alcohol is something I always approximate (mostly when attaching stickers to things). But now I have some.
It has not been a cheap project but I learnt some things:
- the bag isn’t leather, it’s some kind of sprayed on plastic – I know this because alcohol literally took the paint off
- Posca markers work nicely for scuffs and mistakes
- Vliesofix works on the back of upholstery tapestry when I’ve already applied stop fray, but otherwise it doesn’t
- Sometimes the first answer isn’t the only one
- how to ask AI questions to double check it’s not making things up without context
- I DO have the patience to cut out paisley bits, and to then painstakingly mask them with tape onto the bag (second time I was better at this than the first).
- Glue doesn’t always hold, edges are hard.
- AI works better with context (i’ve been staying in the same chat for months now, which revolutionised how helpful it was to me, but also giving it context – for example here’s an image of all the glues I own, which can i use? here’s an image of the serial number for the sewing machine so you can advise me specifically rather than generically
It’s not over yet – I find the tapestry handles a little bit old lady looking, and I plan to wrap them in orange jersey, but it has to be done after my current project to add a new lock to my front door – another excursion into understanding tools and working with AI as an advisor/partner.
