It’s taken me a while to get comfortable enough to write this post. Why you ask? Fear. Fear that if I shared my materials and my process, someone would copy it. Copy me. Start making the same products that I make and selling them. But you know what, even if I don’t share, someone could do that. They might not be the exact same, but maybe a close copy. Maybe they’ll even do it better.

Once I stopped panicking, I remembered that when I started customizing these totes with paint, I researched what the best materials were. I searched for blogs and videos and other people on Instagram sharing their work. I was inspired by all of the information people were willing to share and their talent. Then I started experimenting with everything I learned to discover what worked for me.

I start by drawing the outlines of the design on the bag. I can’t paint without guidelines. Then I fill in the design with a white base coat. I like to use FolkArt multi-surface in white fo this. It covers the background pattern on the bags nicely. Once the base coat has dried, I lightly draw the design on top in pencil. Again, I can’t paint without guidelines. I like to paint the lighter colors first because it’s easier to cover imperfections later with the dark colors.

My favorite paint is Angelus. It is vibrant and goes on very smoothly, and there’s a ton of colors available. This is their website: https://angelusdirect.com. They’ve also got an extensive collection of YouTube videos that you can find here: https://www.youtube.com/user/AngelusBrand. They really do a great job illustrating how to use their products. They mostly cater to sneaker customizers, but these bags work just as hard as any sneaker so I felt like it was a good choice for paint that would be durable and flexible.

I also like Soho paints, they’re durable and available in a great selection of colors. However, they are thicker which means they don’t go on as smoothly and are a little harder to paint with.

This is the set of brushes I used for this bag. But I’ve got all kinds of brushes and use whichever ones fit the project at hand. I like a wide brush for filling in large areas. I like a flat edge brush for finer details in slightly smaller areas. I like a tiny angled brush for corners and edge touch ups. I’m not sure I could recommend a best brush, but Angelus sells brushes alongside their paint and it’s probably a great place to look if you are just getting started and decide to buy their paint.

I am happy that I finally decided to put this post together. I hope that it’s inspiring and informational, like all the ones I read before I got started.

I love adding personal touches to these totes for my customers, and you can shop the hand-painted leopard tote here. But if you want to paint your own, it’s also available as a blank canvas here.