Dangers of Describing: the Noun Clump

When writers describe something, they often use an adjective, and adjectives precede nouns:

It is a cold day. He is buying a bigger truck.

But English does not always identify adjectives: elsewhere, "cold" could be a noun, as in "She has a cold."
Thus a noun phrase (noun plus adjectives preceding it) could grow:

Headline: Deactivated gun ban--this headline could mean a deactivated ban on guns, or a ban on deactivated guns.

"I am selling a vegetarian mother and baby book" could mean a vegetarian mother and a baby book.

A brand new brown women’s leather handbag--What is brown here?

In clarifying these noun phrases, writers have two tools: adding hyphens and/or working backward. For example, "Deactivated gun ban" could have simply become "Deactivated-gun ban" or "Ban on deactivated guns."

The book sentence would have been clearer if it had read, "I am selling a baby book for vegetarian mothers."
or possibly "a vegetarian mother-and-baby book."

As to the handbag, why not write, "a brand-new women's handbag in brown leather"? (Or is "women's" even necessary when the noun is handbag?) Note the power of the word "leather." It carries a hint for you e-Bayers: the last word in the description will get the emphasis.