Gallery • 6 Photos

Photo courtesy of Yulianis Quiñones

Quiñones made a tote bag for herself as well.

Junior Yulianis Quiñones began painting and selling tote bags over the summer in her free time. Quiñones designs each bag to be unique to the person that buys it. 

“[The tote bags are designed with] self-portraits of other people, but [painted] in my style, so [with] big eyes and big hair. [I came up with the overall design when] I accidentally drew an eye too big and I just went with it. I just like to use art to design these bags,” Quiñones said. 

Quiñones started selling the tote bags because of her friends and families encouragement. 

“I painted them because I was bored. I showed them to my friends and family and they all [said] I needed to start selling them,” Quiñones said. 

She sells them for $20 each and lets her customers choose the colors and design they want included on the bag. 

“I ask them what colors they want and how they want it to look [before I draw it out. Sometimes], they change the background colors or they want a flower or butterflies [as the design],” Quiñones said. 

Creating one bag takes Quiñones about a day. She star

ts with a sketch and then adds color.

“I ask them what colors they want, then I sketch it out, send them the picture of the sketch and then if they like it, I go on. If they don’t, I tweak it and then start painting, ” Quiñones said. 

Her favorite part of creating and designing these bags is seeing how unique each piece comes out. 

“Drawing them out and seeing how different each one [comes out is my favorite part of making them],” Quiñones said. 

The first bag Quiñones created was her favorite to make because she had more room to be creative. 

“The flower one [was my favorite to make] because it’s different than all the others. I got to play around with [the design] more. [It was] the first one that started [my business],” Quiñones said. 

She made more of the bags over the summer, but she hopes to continue the business even though she is occupied with school.

“I wouldn’t mind still [making] them. I’d just do things differently, since I [made] a lot [of bags] that weren’t picked up. I [also] have less time now [with school],” Quiñones said.