"Wow! That is so neat! How about making me one?" That's the response Denton Kump got -- even from total strangers -- when she went out, carrying the handbag she created.

Why did this research scientist with a Ph.D. in pharmacology and toxicology decide to make her own handbag? She was driven to it.

Mother of two boys, one four years old, the other barely two, Denton Kump realized she had been carrying the same black nylon diaper bag, using it as her handbag, for four years. She was ready for a change!

But when she went on a mission to find a new purse, the options she found were disappointing. "Instead of finding anyting inspriring and original," she says, "I found more black nylon and the same old shapes."

So Denton decided to make a handbag that she liked. Growing up in High Point, North Carolina, she had taken a sewing class at age 11 with her mother. And as a teenager, Denton had designed and made her own clothers. Admitting to loving clothes, she points out, "My mom said she wasn't going to buy me 15 new outfits a week. But she said if I learned to sew, she would buy me all the fabric I wanted."

Thus, this research scientist sat down at the sewing machine that had belonged to her grandmother and began making a purse. Denton used a record case, the kind that holds 45's, as her model. (This 36-year-old has older brothers who played 45's.) Constructing a handbag, however, didn't happen instantly. "It did not initially come together," she explains. "I knew what I wanted it to look like, but I didn't what to put in it to make it work."

Perhaps her scientific background paid off. "I made about ten purses before I liked what I saw." Once she perfected the handbag and began to carry it, other people liked what they saw, too. Requests for her pocketbooks were immediate -- and escalated. In her Richmond, Virginia, home, she tried to fill orders in her spare time, continuiing to work full time in her "official" profession. Then the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts invited her to sell bags for their shelves. Denton rented a temporary booth at a trade show in Atlanta. And suddenly, she had 40 more accounts.

Today, other people sit down at a sewing machine and make the handbags that Denton designs -- she has a manufacturer. Her full-time job now is her new business, Poesis, which means "creation" in Greek. And Denton continues to create. In addition to her first cube design, she's added two more shapes, one triangular, the other rectangular. Always remembering how her diaper bag doubled as a purse, she made the rectangular-shaped handbag so it would hold a box of small travel-size wipes, a diaper, and a bottle. Her handbags also come in petite, the smaller size being perfect for an evening bag. Match a petite bag with a regular-size one, and you have mother-daughter handbags, notes Denton, who has even taken one more step -- she's creating shoes. The riotous fabrics she uses in zany combinations is key to the eye-catching appeal of Denton's designs. "Finding fabric is one of the most difficult things," she says. "I have to look high and low."

Yet so well does she success, her fans look high, low, and in-between, seeking Denton Kump's latest creations.