Woman's Handbag Made of Laser-Cut Leather With Phone Charger and LED Light

This bag was designed and made for my wife. It is a nice Leather Hand Bag for Women and created using an Epilog Laser in my favorite Hackerspacelab in Vienna.

It has the following features:

All handmade
Integrated iPhone Charger
Integrated LED Lighting

You will need the following tools:

A Laser cutter able to cut 2mm Leather
A Hammer, a thin and a thicker Needle, and a hard piece of wood for support to hammer the rivets.
A shoe repairman who has a sewing machine to sew the zip (i didn't do the zips myself because i had no machine)

Bill of Materials:

You need the following things:

About 2 squaremeters of Leather - about 2 mm thickness, any type will fit - about 50 EUR
Access to a Laser Cutter - my favorite is the Epilog Legend 36EXT - about 1,5 EUR per Minute - you will need about 20 Minutes to cut
About 20 Pieces of Double-Cap Rivets - about 10 EUR
50 Meters of strong strand, able to hold leather together (ask a shoe repairman what fits best) - about 12 EUR
1 Meter of zip and the according zip latch which fits to the zip - about 30 EUR including the service of the shoe repairman.
2 latches for the front bags (just for decoration) - about 4 EUR
2 latches for the strap and the opposite pieces for the bag strap - about 4 EUR
2 Magnets for the front Bags - about 3 EUR
a filling for the handle - about 40 cm, cut accordingly - about 4 EUR
For the Phone-Charger you need: A USB Charger with at least 2600mAh Capacity and a USB Cable - about 25 EUR
For the Bag-Light you need:
- Conductive Thread Bobbin - 30ft (Stainless Steel) - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-10867 for $2.95
- LilyPad Coin Cell Battery Holder - 20mm - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-10730 for $3.95
- LilyPad Button Board - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-08776 for $1.50
- LilyPad Slide Switch - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-09350 for $2.50
- LilyPad LED White (5pcs) - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-10081 for $3.95
- CR-2032 Coin Cell Battery

And a lot of patience.

Step 1: Lasercut the Leather

Put your piece of leather into the Laser Cutter and load the attached Files into your favorite Vector Graphics program. I designed them in Adobe Illustrator, but you can use your favorite tool.

Please make sure that you laser all lines as hair-lines (0,0001 pt) so your laser cutter cuts the leader instead of engraving.

If you engrave things like the Logo, first engrave, then cut the drawing.

The power / speed / frequency settings of the laser cutter need to be set accordingly the manual of your cutter because it depends on the Watt of the device.

Step 2: Sew the Zip

Take the cut out pieces (the front and back side of the bag) to the shoe repairman and let him/her sew the zip with his sewing machine onto the Bag.*

Please make sure that on the top side of the bag zip you leave 4 centimeters on both left and right side of the zip, so that you can make the nice end-piece.

* If you have a sewing machine which can sew leather you can also do this yourself.

Step 3: Sew the Mosaic Tiles

Take a needle and the string and sew the mosaic tiles so they fit into the front window.

Make sure that you sew them from the back and you sew them in a 45 degree angle.

Step 4: Sew the Bags Components and Sew Them Onto the Bag

Sew the rest of the components onto the bag as shown in the picture.

All big holes need to be hammered with a double-cap-rivet - as shown in the picture to make the leather stronger.

The handle also has 2 double-cap-rivets and is sewed so that you don't see the fissure.

The latches on the front bags need to be applied and the front bags need to be sewed onto the bag - take the small needle for this because on the mosaic there are no pre-cut holes.

Step 5: The Inside of the Bag

Take an old Jeans and cut away the legs.

Invert the jean so that you can put it into the bag and be able to access it's bags. Sew together the holes where the legs where.

For the LED Light sew the Battery, on/off-switch, push button and all LEDs on the jeans so they light up the inner side of the bag according the diagram.

Use the compontents:

Conductive Thread Bobbin - 30ft (Stainless Steel) - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-10867 for $2.95

LilyPad Coin Cell Battery Holder - 20mm - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-10730 for $3.95
LilyPad Button Board - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-08776 for $1.50

LilyPad Slide Switch - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-09350 for $2.50

LilyPad LED White (5pcs) - at Sparkfun.com: DEV-10081 for $3.95

and a Battery CR2032

Please be sure the light works before sewing the jean into the bag with the pre-cut holes.