It is really easy to take a plain leather or faux vinyl leather bag and transform it into something really unique. I bought a very cheap navy clutch bag (£1.99 from Home Bargains), a leather painting kit (£12.99 from Create & Craft TV) and some tech customising stickers (£1 from New Look sale) and used them to create an eye-catching statement bag.

The paint set that I bought is the Plaid Leather Studio Basic Leather Paint Set. You get a variety of colours of acryllic paint for leather and vinyl, including some lovely metallics. You also get a set of brushes, although these aren’t great quality. These paints work best on smooth-surfaced leather or vinyl. I used a cross-hatched vinyl clutch which meant that I could only really do a linear design with masking tape, as the paint bled into all the little cracks if I didn’t have these straight borders in place. If your surface is smooth, you will be able to paint a freehand design a lot more easily.

Once I had settled on gold horizontal stripes, I needed to do three coats (with an hour in-between each) to get it to look opaque. I then peeled off the masking tape and corrected any areas of bleeding with the dark navy paint from the kit. I then coated the painted areas with the included gloss top coat that helps protect the surface from weather damage and from general wear and tear. Once this was all dry, I used one of the plastic gadget/tech customising stickers and superglued it onto the front of the bag. You can use any kind of plastic sticker or patch to do this. Skinny Dip do some great ones and it’s a brilliant way to express your personality.

You get so much paint in this leather paint kit, so I am going to customise some cheap Primark flat ballerina pumps next. Have you ever customised your own fashion accessories? I’d love to see!