It all started with one of my usual Google searches for images of cute things. That’s how I discovered the wonder of clear resin, and the community of glitter-loving girls who make adorable clear resin charms and post DIY tutorials of their crafts on YouTube.
I fell in love with the look or the glossy resin and decided to make my own crafts with it. The only problem was – it’s very hard to find resin for small craft purposes in my country. All I could find here was a more industrial-ish material in large, inconvenient cans that smelled like cancer.

Luckily, my boyfriend had to fly to New York for two weeks for work, and I tagged along. There I went to Michaels and got a package of Easy Cast Clear Resin Epoxy. I love America!

So today I will show you, step by step, how to make these cute resin coated handbag hangers.
In case you don’t know, handbag hangers (also called bag holders or purse hooks or other similar combinations) are folding hangers that can be placed on the edge of the table with their hooks hanging under it. You can hang your bag on them instead of putting it on the yucky floor.

For The design of my hangers I used my own illustrations. After all, I’ve been creating stock images for years now and I have a huge folder with graphic materials that I can use for my personal whimsies…

You can draw your own designs or use stickers, pieces of patterned paper, cutouts from magazine or anything you like.

Let’s start!

What you will need:

• Blank folding handbag hooks (I bought mine from eBay)
• Some graphic element
• Ruler or measuring tape
• Scissors
• Stick glue
• Transparent duct tape
• Clear resin
• Drinking straw
• Disposable spoon \ Popsicle stick
• Small container to mix the resin in
• Optional – small decorations like glitters\beads\crystals
• Mod Podge \ white glue (if you want to add the small decorations)

Step 1:

Start by preparing your graphic element. Measure the diameter of your handbag hook and draw a circle of the same size on paper. Create your design in the circle (or draw the circle on an already designed paper).
I prepared my designs on the computer and printed them out.

Step 2:

Cut out the circle with scissors, and make it a liiittle bit smaller than the bag hanger itself. By “a little bit” I mean small enough for duct tape to pin the edges of the paper to the handbag hook, but not small enough for anyone to notice that it’s smaller.

Step 3:

Stick a piece of duct tape to your graphic element. This step is super important. The tape protects the paper from getting wet by the resin.

Step 4:

Cut the tape around the graphic element, leaving a little bit of margin. The margins should be big enough to assure that the edges of the paper are sealed so no resin leaks inside.

Step 5:

Apply some stick glue to the handbag hook and stick the graphic element to it. When you do that, look at the orientation of the hook and make sure that when the hanger is in use, the image is pointing to where you want it to.

Step 6:

Tuck the edges of the duct tape to the small crease between the handbag hook’s surface and its frame.

Step 7:

If the edges of the tape is sticking beyond the hook’s margins, trim it with scissors.

Step 8:

At this point you can add other decorations to your design. I glued a few crystals to one of my hangers.
Make sure the glue is completely dry and colorless and transparent before you move on to the next step.

Step 9:

Now it’s time to prepare the resin. Do it according to the instructions of the package (different brands may have different instructions). Wear rubber gloves to protect your skin.
I mixed my resin with a disposable spoon in a paper cupcake mold.

Step 10:

Put a little bit of resin on the center of the handbag hook and start pushing it towards the edges with your spoon\ stick.
It’s very important to start with a small amount, because the resin is rather runny and you don’t want it to flow over the edges of the hanger.

This is The amount of resin you should start with:

Step 11:

Take your straw and gently blow air on the resin to get rid of bubbles.

Step 12:

Once you are done with the doming, your hanger needs to dry. At this point you don’t want to touch\shake\tilt\ think unstable thoughts next to your wet resin.
Put your craft on a flat surface out of reach of kids and cats, and place something over it to keep away the dust.

Step 13:

Did you patiently wait for the hardening process to complete? Congratulations! You have your own DIY handbag hooks to show off with!☺

Did you find this DIY handbag hooks tutorial helpful? Were the instructions easy to follow? Let me know in the comments below!