Vintage Wedding Crafts Made in Manchester

For many people, an old, hard piece of luggage is just an old, hard piece of junk.

“People just throw it away because it’s been in their closet forever and they don’t think its worth anything,” said Carrie Sexton. “But it’s a treasure to me.”

With a little paint and lots of decoupage, Sexton turns vintage hard luggage she finds in stores near her Manchester home into unique cardholders for wedding receptions. She sells them on Etsy, an online craft store, to customers all over the U.S.

“I enjoy it because I know it’s a special item for the bride,” Sexton said. “When she opens up the box, she will be so excited about it. She knows that nobody else (is) going to have anything exactly like it.”

Sexton says crafting is in her blood. Her mother, whom Sexton calls “the queen of garage sales,” was a champion of the DIY (“do-it-yourself”) wedding decades before they became a national trend. She made Sexton’s wedding dress herself and taught her a valuable motto: “There’s always a cheaper way.”

So Sexton said it was only natural when a friend asked her to make a special place for guests to drop off greeting or gift cards at her daughter’s wedding. Sexton saw a simple suitcase online with “Just Married” painted on and thought, “Oh, I can do way better than that.”

She found a vintage suitcase, painted it black and decorated it with travel stickers, tulle and ribbons.

“Everybody ooh-ed and aah-ed about it, and I was like, yeah, I made that,” Sexton said. “They were like, ‘Of course you did. We are not surprised at all.’”

That got Sexton wondering: Maybe there was a market for her luggage-themed cardholders on Etsy. She signed up, posted the suitcase she’d made for her friend’s daughter’s wedding and sold it within a day.

Later, she found a suitcase for $1, gave it “a little scrub” and sold it on Etsy for $120.

“I was hooked after that,” she said. Sexton has sold nine "Just Married" suitcases and 16 other vintage knick-knacks since joining Etsy almost a year ago.

Sexton says her suitcases are popular with brides planning travel or vintage-themed weddings, especially since they serve a dual purpose: card holder and fun photo prop. Most of her customers live on the east or west coast.

“We have a lot of treasures” here in eastern Missouri, she said. “People on the east and west coast don’t have a lot of that.”

Find Sexton’s shop, Posey616, on Etsy.com.