How to Make a Handbag Hook

Protect your purse with a handmade hook.

Setting your purse on the floor in a restaurant means putting it in contact with germs and spills left by other diners, while also making it easy to snatch. Purse hooks allow you to hang your bag from the table, keeping it close and clean. Recycle metal tins and add your own style to your new accessory.

Things You'll Need

• Metal mint tin
• Sand
• Jewelers' epoxy
• Metal primer
• Acrylic paint
• Acrylic spray varnish
• Embellishments (optional)
• Small over-the-door wreath hanger
• Pliers

Instructions

1. Fill an empty mint tin with sand. Glue the lid on with jewelers' epoxy.

2. Paint the metal tin with primer and allow it to dry.

3. Paint the tin with acrylic craft paint. Allow it to dry and add a second coat.

4. Spray the painted tin with varnish to seal the paint and protect it.

5. Embellish the tin with fabric or scrapbook paper decoupage, stickers, beads or other fibers and designs, as you choose.

6. Bend the small flap on an over-the-door wreath hanger---the part that fits behind the door---to straighten it. Your hanger should now have an approximately 90-degree angle and a rounded hook at the other end.

7. Glue the bottom of the tin to the hook with epoxy, above the bend in the wire.

Tips & Warnings

• Fill the tin with anything you have available that will give it weight, including small metal balls or plaster of Paris.

• An overly large or heavy handbag may pull the hook off the table. In that case, extend the "arm" of the hook by gluing a length from a wire clothes hanger to the wreath holder. Glue the painted tin to the hanger wire.