Cell phone cases

My dh needed a new cell phone case so I thought I would give it a go. This one doesn't look too bad but it ended up too small. I think it shrunk a little in the molding process. I also used a piece of pig skin to line the inside so that the metal clip would not scratch the phone and that made it hard for the phone to slip in and out. Things to know and avoid for next time.



This one fits the phone better as I molded it around the phone and attached the clip with a second piece of leather. It is not without issues but is functional. In the picture the uneven bevelling really shows,  in real life, it isn't that in your face. Hand sewing is not my most favourite thing so I hope to see a leather sewing machine in my future.

Roper Wallet

I got a couple of these kits from Tandy when they were on sale and decided it was time to try one of them. I still had some ostrich leg left so decided to make an inlay. I added the strap and snap as I felt it would be necessary to hold the wallet closed.

Since the feel of the piece was more modern, I just tooled a bit on the back and the strap. I have to say I really like the Professional Waterstain lineup from Tandy. The colours are rich and they go on really well.

I'm not sure I really like this style of wallet. It is much heavier in look and feel to what I am used to. It was kind of frustrating that the inserts were too large and the holes didn't match. But I will try it for a while, it may grow on me.

Re-doing purse handle

I posted earlier about my purse with the tooled leather flap. I was happy with the tooling, but something was still not working with the purse. After a discussion with a good friend, I realized that the handle attachment looked unfinished. As I didn't want to have to redo the whole area where the handle attached, I had to come up with something else. This seems to work. I'm much happier with it anyways.

Flower Necklace

There had been a discussion on the Leatherworker's forum about whether you could use a paper diecut machine for leather. I have one of the original Spellbinders Wizard machines so thought I would give it a try since I know that it can handle fairly dense materials. I used the Tim Holtz tattered florals die from Sizzix. I tooled to get more definition and dimension. I coloured the flowers with Copics then antiqued with leather die. The damp leather shaped well and I was pleasantly surprised at how lightweight the final pendant is.

Key tag

Just a little thing I made for my son-in-law using his logo. It was the first time I had done this type of carving. I found that the copic markers worked really well to colour the main figure and the edging.

Luggage tag

When I was planning to use the copics for colouring the leather on the purse flap, I decided to try it out on some scrap leather first. This was belly leather which is not the greatest but it was good enough to practice both the tooling and the colouring. I did learn a lot from this exercise. The tooling made it impossible to groove the stitching line and I should have cut around the patterns on the luggage tag opening more carefully. Actually things were not going too badly until I used the wrong tool to make the holes for stitching, as I was waiting for the correct ones to come. These holes are much too large and really detract from the tooling.

Even though the stitching aggravates me, I did use it when travelling a couple of weeks ago because I do like the tooling.

Hobo style purse

I have been playing with this in my mind for a long time and finally got it done. As a first one, there were many things that did not work as well as I hoped. But I can see a lot of improvements in my tooling and I learned a lot about the does and don'ts in construction. The flap sectioned tooled.

I am getting much better definition with my tooling. A lot of it has to do with getting some better bevellers from Northern Lights Leather Tools.

I hand painted the background using Golden Acrylic paints and air brush medium. I did get some of it on the leaf but it doesn't show after the leaf was coloured.

I coloured the flowers and leaves with Copic markers. This was a real learning experience as they behave a lot differently on leather than on smooth cardstock.

Then I antiqued with a dark brown hilite stain to pull it all together.

This wasn't the best fabric for the liner as it is a cotton, but I loved the print. I can always replace it if it wears out.

The blue leather I bought at Tandy leather on sale. I'm not sure that is shows in the pictures but it isn't navy and isn't royal blue, but somewhere in between. A really pretty colour with denim.

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