Using supplied key to encrypt text python

How do I encrypt with my own key?

I've searched over the net to do this. How do I encrypt with my own key? In python I prefer cryptography though. It keeps popping out the error Fernet key must be 32 url-safe base64-encoded bytes and TypeError: a bytes-like object is required, not 'str'. I am trying to create a private variable function. I'm python new-comer.

Here is my uncompleted code. Thank you for your help.

from cryptography.fernet import Fernet
import inspect
import hashlib
import base64     #Fernet key must be 32 url-safe base64-encoded bytes

def encode(key, string):
    encoded_chars = []
    for i in xrange(len(string)):
        key_c = key[i % len(key)]
        encoded_c = chr(ord(string[i]) + ord(key_c) % 256)
        encoded_chars.append(encoded_c)
    encoded_string = "".join(encoded_chars)
    return base64.urlsafe_b64encode(encoded_string)

class private:
    class sec_storage:
        data = dict()
        hashed_data = dict()
    class var:
        def create(var,value):
            # creates key based on caller
            key = hashlib.sha224(str(inspect.stack()).encode()).hexdigest()
            cipher_suite = Fernet(base64.b64encode(key))   #Fernet key must be 32 url-safe base64-encoded bytes
            # encrypts using key
            encoded_text = cipher_suite.encrypt(value)
            # prepares storage
            hashed_var = hashlib.sha224("plus".join(list(var.encode(),key[:12])).hexdigest())
            hashed_value = hashlib.sha224(value.encode()).hexdigest()[12:30]
            private.sec_storage.data[hashed_var] = encoded_text
            private.sec_storage.hashed_data[hashed_var] = hashed_value

        def read(var):
            # creates key based on caller
            key = hashlib.sha224(str(inspect.stack()).encode()).hexdigest()
            cipher_suite = Fernet(base64.b64encode(key))     #Fernet key must be 32 url-safe base64-encoded bytes
            # retrieve var
            hashed_varname = hashlib.sha224("plus".join(list(var.encode(),key[:12])).hexdigest())
            try:
                hashed_var = private.sec_storage.data[hashed_varname]
            except NameError:
                raise NameError("Requested variable not found")
            # decrypts using key
            decoded_text = cipher_suite.decrypt(hashed_var)
            hashed_value = hashlib.sha224(decoded_text.encode()).hexdigest()[12:30]
            # checks if password is correct
            if private.sec_storage.hashed_data[hashed_varname] != hashed_value:
                raise ValueError("Value not as requested")
            return decoded_text
private.var.create("myvar","Hello World!")
print(private.var.read("myvar"))
print(sec_storage.data)

As you can see cipher_suite = Fernet(base64.b64encode(key)) #Fernet key must be 32 url-safe base64-encoded

How do I fix it?