When it comes to accessorizing your tote bags, few things stand in your way. A little while ago, we talked about amazing ideas on how to turn a plain canvas tote bag into a stylish accessory. If you feel like engaging in some DIY creative projects, you have come to the right place, because today we will talk about even more accessorizing ideas, but with a focus on canvas bags with zipper.
Very practical, canvas zippered bags can take you anywhere, from shopping to a party. If you love zippered canvas bags for the extra safety and sturdiness they provide, we have fifteen accessorizing and styling ideas for you to turn a canvas tote in a bright color into a veritable fashion statement.
1. Canvas Zipper Bag with Brooches and Hand-Made Statement Pieces
One of the easiest ways of accessorizing your canvas bags with zipper is to adorn them with one of your favorite brooches. However, you can go further with your creative project and embellish your canvas zipper bag with a decorative element you do yourself.
If you have some beads bracelet you do not use anymore and some other pieces of jewelry you want to originally display on your bag, now it is the time to take some needles and threads and sew them. A statement element, subtle, feminine, and beautiful creates a cute and stylish ensemble, especially if you match them with a vividly colored zippered canvas bag.
2. Zippered Canvas Bag with All the Scarves You Love
Scarves make the simplest and most versatile accessory elements you can add to your zippered canvas bags. If you use a plain white canvas bag with zipper, you can change the way it looks every single day.
Just tie a scarf to the handle and match it to your outfit, mood, or occasion. Scarves come in a myriad of colors and prints, so you have endless choices when it comes to nuance and style matching.
Long, rich scarves can turn all canvas zippered bags into fashion statements as they add a dash of feminine glam to your full attire. A shorter scarf can make a cute, sweet bow for a small design element that can completely change the way a canvas bag looks.
3. Zipper Canvas Bag with Fun Badges
If you feel young at heart and love to display your collection of fun and whimsical badges and pins, your zippered canvas bag is the perfect way to do it.
If you are a badge collector, you can replace some badges, remove some, or add others to match the canvas zipper bag to your outfit or the occasion. Many badges come with an intrinsic amusement value, so keep yourself cheered up and cheer up everyone who sees you on the street, at a party, or at the supermarket.
4. Canvas Zipper Bags with Embroidered Colorful Embroidered Badges
Embroidered badges are available in many specialty stores. If you love to put your skills to work, you can make your own embroidered badges to apply on your canvas zippered bag.
The slight drawback of this technique is that the embroidered badges will remain on your bag for a very long time, as they are not removable and replaceable as normal badges and pins are. However, if you want some of your zippered bags to display certain embroideries, this is the way to go.
5. Canvas Zipper Bags with Oriental Adorned Outer Trimming
One of the easiest ways to adorn and accessorize any canvas bags with zipper is to create a gorgeous outer trimming. The trimming can take any style you enjoy.
We like the idea of an oriental flair to a zippered canvas bag as it is easy to create and allows you full creative freedom. All you need is beads, cloth trimmings, charms, chains, decorative oriental coins, and many more.
You can apply them in a trimming – up to the handles or down at the bottom to turn your canvas zipper bag into a fashion statement. If you want to take things further, pick a canvas zipper bag in a vibrant color or intricate, oriental-style pattern.
6. Zippered Canvas Bags with Your Name or Monogram on Them
We said it before and we will say it again: few things exude a simpler elegance than canvas bags with zipper that display a beautiful monogram or your embroidered name on them. The beauty of such accessorizing idea is that you can pick a canvas zipper bag in a two-tone design, and apply your name/monogram in the contrasting colors of the two.
A beautiful choice implies a two-tone canvas bag in powerful contrasts, such as white and dark blue or white and neon pink. You can monogram the bag yourself if you know your ways with a needle or take it to a specialized shop for a print or an embroidery.
7. Canvas Bags with Zipper and a Fun Message to Show your Personality
Speaking about printing, styling up and accessorizing a zippered canvas bag can completely change its looks and yours the second you print on it a fun and whimsical message, quote, or image even.
As we were saying a while back, zippered canvas bags make incredibly useful and safe beach bags – and when it comes to them, you know we hold all the canvas beach bags styling secrets.
Just as we said above, some of the best ideas in this department are the ones involving tow-tone contrasting canvas zippered bags. The printed message should come in the darker color of the two for a boost of color and contrast.
8. Zipper Canvas Bags with Pompons
Pompons have something young, fun, colorful, and almost magic to them. These whimsical accessories can style up any canvas bags with zipper. You can hang the pompoms chain onto the handle or onto the zipper slider for a subtle adornment, which brings all the colors, textures, and personal styles to any plain canvas bag.
You can buy pompoms from specialty stores or you can create them yourself – depending on how creative you are and how skilled you feel in a particular day. If you want to take things up a notch, use a keychain charm ensemble instead, clipping it onto the zipper slider for a touch of glam and elegant simplicity, then take your bag out shopping or partying.
9. Canvas Bags with Zipper and Lambada-Style Ruffles
Do you remember that 90s Lambada song and dance and all those mini colored ruffled skirts? Why wouldn’t you adorn your zipper canvas bag with some stylish cloth ruffles to repurpose an older bag into a completely new one or turn a new one into a statement of style?
Ruffle bags are quite hip these days – all major design and fashion houses sell them – so you can have your own hand-made one at a fraction of the price. Do you want to up your ante? Then instead of making a cloth ruffles bag make a fringe canvas bag. The fringes can come in cloth, leather strips, thin chains, and a combination of leather and metal for a full glam effect.
10. Zippered Canvas Bags with Your Personal Statements and Views
As we all know, canvas bags offer plenty of support for prints. Besides motivational quotes, lyrics and verses, book quotes, and others, zippered canvas tote bags can also carry (on the outside) some of your own personal statements and views on the world.
We mentioned the value of wearing canvas shopping bags over plastic bags, but if you want to really stand out from the crowd, here is a statement idea you can get behind of. It is a bold statement, indeed, but you can spin it off so you can display something that you want everybody to know (unless it is offensive, of course).
11. Canvas Bags with Zipper and Plenty of Buttons
Cloth-covered buttons in an endless variety of shapes, sizes, patterns, and colors make some of the easiest adornments you can use to style up and accessories your canvas bags.
If you want to place them randomly on the bag’s surface you can unleash your creativity and have fun with such a project. If you want to test your skills, you can place the buttons in all sorts of patterns and designs that only need some minimal sewing skills and some planning.
You can make a gorgeous trimming with buttons or you can create veritable 3D landscapes on the bag’s side, also using ribbons and appliques, beads, and all sorts of gorgeous materials. You can opt for a rustic look or a stylish glamorous look – it all depends on your style and tastes.
12. Canvas Zippered Bags with Doilies
Doilies are not fashionable as home accessories these days, but you can boost some life into them turning them into the perfect patchwork for your plain canvas bags. Use a white or cream doily to sew or glue over a dark colored canvas zipper bag for contrast and style.
You can also use a light colored natural canvas bag with a white or creamy doily (or doilies) for a rustic, retro look. If your grandma still has some doilies around the house, get your hands on them and patch your canvas bags with them because this type of refined embroidery is coming back big into fashion.
13. Bags in Canvas with Zippers, Doilies, and Linen Patchwork
Did you just find some cute doilies in a shop or around the house? Are there any handkerchiefs lying around by any chance? If so, you just found your next best DIY patchwork project! Mixing doily embroidery and colored linen to fully cover a canvas bag takes some work and some sewing, but the results can look spectacular. Such a project works well with plain white canvas you want to spice up, or with some older canvas bags you want to repurpose and make new.
14. Canvas Zippered Bags with Lace, Velvet, and Jewelry
Since we already have some threads and needles available from the patchwork project described above, why shouldn’t we take things up a few notches and turn a simple canvas zipper bag into a fashion statement?
If you love Victorian and gothic fashion or if you just want some glam in your life, such a project brings together the color, texture, luxurious look and feel of more feminine and seductive past eras.
All you need are some velvet, silk, and lace scraps, maybe some leather ones as well. Patch your canvas zippered bags in a flimsy, flowing design and adorn the product with beads, charms, and rhinestones even. The art and beauty of such project reside in the fact that you do not respect the original streamlined shape of the canvas bag but turn it into a metaphorical dress, which will definitely impress.
15. Canvas Zippered Bags with a Retro Steampunk Flair
Since we are talking about glorious styles of the past, a retro canvas zippered bags redesign and accessorizing project should be fun and yielding some fabulous results.
Retro and steampunk are all about vintage brown (and a bit worn) leather, metal appliques in the shape of cogs and wheels, old stamps, and natural earthy colors such as jute, cream, browns, and soft yellows.
You can either print some steampunk graphics on your canvas bag or run the whole ten yards, and use real leather and metal appliques to embellish it in your unique manner.
Wrapping up our threads and needles…
These were our fifteen ideas on how to accessorize and style up your canvas bags with zippers. The zipper element gives you even more freedom of design, as you can use the zipper slider as support for pompons, keychain charms, tags, and others.
Moreover, the zipper can become an integral part of your styling project – as is the case with steampunk-style canvas zippered bags or even the Victorian/gothic ones. Did you ever consider accessorizing your zipper canvas bags? Do you have other ideas for us to follow and share with the community?