Imprinting leaves into leather

[ClayB]

Wolvenstien asked me about another thread that must have been lost in the crash last year. So here is some of it again.

At a shop in Rapid City last fall my wife saw some really neat leather purses with leaves imprinted into the leather. Actually, on the purses, the leaves seemed to be raised off the leather.

The guy that did these had a website, but I didn't seem to save the info on it. Here is another one that I think Kate posted that has similar stuff.

Well, my wife and I decided to try and see if we could do something like this. We collected some leaves out of the yard, cased some leather, and tried to impress the leaves into the leather. My wife does scrapbooking and rubber stamping and it seems that people that are into those crafts need as many cool tools as leather crafters do. She has a few different machines that are used to emboss paper and she thought one of them would work well for this. It's called a Cuttlebug and you can see more info on it here

First thing we learned was that putting fresh leaves through this machine isn't that great of an idea. The machine has enough pressure to squeeze out whatever moisture is in the leaf and makes a gooey mess. We happened to have a bunch of dried leaves here in the house so we tried those and they worked really well. \

The biggest problem with the Cuttlebug machine is that you can only put a piece of leather about 5 inches wide through it. Kate did some experimenting and found out that you can also get pretty good results using a press. (I think I should live next door to Kate) Later on when my wife wanted to make a larger book cover out of leather and put some leaves on it we had to figure out a way to get the impressions into it. What worked this time was to set the leather on the cement floor, place the leaves on top, cover that with a piece of 1/8 inch thick plastic, and then press it in with a rolling pin. I had to use quite a bit of pressure on the rolling pin, but it worked pretty good. I was surprised that getting good results trying this wasn't all that hard, and the detail you can get out of a leaf is really impressive.

Here are some of the things we made using this technique.

[UKRay]

That is beautiful stuff...

This is kinda spooky because I was talking to Luke about that missing post just a couple of days ago. I have just acquired an old bookbinder's press and Luke suggested that it ought to work well for this technique. If you simply need to squash the leaves into the leather then this thing is made for the job. These lovely old presses are fairly common on eBay and don't always make a lot of money. The important thing is that they come down level... some don't!

Edited July 26, 2008 by UKRay

[Luke Hatley]

O K COUSIN.........you have the press now let us see the embossed leaves in the leather.

i have a good idea that your wife would like to have a project made .

[leatheroo]

great stuff clay....the mind races with all the things that could be pressed into leather....

[CitizenKate]

Those are so nice! I'm definitely going to have to do some more playing with that idea.

Kate

[MADMAX22]

Looks great but in the first ones it looks like the leaves are rasied away from the leather. Is that so or am I looking at it wrong.

Still looks aewsome.

[ClayB]

Yes, in the original photos, the leaves are actually raised above the leather. There was a website for the guy that made these, but I cant find it. In his brochure he said that he made "stamps" of some sort in the shape of the different leaves and I think he said he had thousands of them. They would have to be pretty big "stamps".

What we did wasn't the same, but we were happy with it.

[whtdove3]

I found this http://www.rusticspirit.com/leatherleaves/, but it's hard to tell from the photo if it's raised or not. Awful pretty, though.

[whtdove3]

I'm home now and had some time to dig around a little more on this. I'm very fascinated by this design and I think I found the artist who does this (C.L. Whiting). His website said over the years he developed over 5000 tools in various leaf patterns to come up with this method of raised leaf leatherwork.

[CitizenKate]

That's at http://www.clwhiting.com/, for anyone who wants to go check it out.

Kate

[ClayB]

Thanks for finding and posting this site again. I was going to start searching for it but now I dont have too. I am a little surprised how much interest there has been in these leaves. I have been getting emails and phone calls asking about how to do them. Hopefully we will get to see what some other people come up with using this idea.

[BillB]

Have you consider:

1. Using 2 oz leather or even some of the thin lining leather

2. Putting the dried leaf on the bottom plate first

3. Then laying the cased leather on top, flesh side towards the leaf

4. Then laying a high density foam piece on top of the leather

5. Then add the top pressure plate.

The foam should allow the leather to shape around the leaf and leave the raised impression.

[Windy]

I have not tried this so it is just speculation

on my part. While visiting the local zoo , I

noticed they had leaf imprints in the concrete.

Now I figure if you can leave a leaf impression

in concrete then plaster should be even easier.

Now having another hobby called pottery , I have

seen enterprising potters make tile molds out of

plaster and pressing them under great pressure

into clay and never breaking. Most use home

made presses out of 2x material. I seen one

with an eight foot handle made out of a standard

2x4 stud to apply the pressure to make a 6x6

inch tile with plaster molds. I do beleive they

use mold making plaster availible at pottery supply

stores.

WINDY

[dvawolk]

Hi, all!

I have a question regarding embossing leaves into leather.

I know that it has to be vegetable tanned leather, i use cow or calf leather.

I am able to press leaves into leather but the detail in not that good. Should i put more pressure into the leather?

Also, i found some great articles (link below) that use leather embossing with dyeing leather afterwards. Here i come to a problem. How can the embossed leather be dyed like this? what color should be used? alcohol based? water based acryl color?

http://ny-image3.ets...l.185367367.jpg

Thanks for your valuable answers! I am somehow stucked somewhere inside this technique...

Edited October 24, 2010 by dvawolk

[CitizenKate]

What a coincidence that this topic got revived... I just happened to be in my shop pressing some leaves onto some checkbook covers.

More pressure does help, and the longer you sustain the pressure (up to a point), the more detailed and persistent the impression is.

Different leathers give different results. I also moisten the leather more when pressing leaves into the leather, compared to when I'm just carving and tooling.

I get different results with different species of leaves. The best results come from leaves that are fairly thick and stiff. The really thin, tender leaves are very difficult to get a good impression from.

It seems to improve the detail of the impression if you stiffen the leaf up a bit by applying a very light coat of lacquer all over the leaf and allow it to dry before pressing it.

To get that color effect, use block-dying. I posted a tutorial on this technique a couple of years ago... http://leatherworker.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=2712

HTH...

Kate

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

For multiple leaves I would say doing them individually will give the best results, as the pressure is more concetrated.

For making stamps you might consider making a plaster mold, then casting a rein into the mold. There is a company called smooth-on that makes various mold materials.

[CitizenKate]

For multiple leaves I would say doing them individually will give the best results, as the pressure is more concetrated.

I tried that, and I would prefer to do it that way, but... Although each individual leaf gets a better impression at the time it is pressed, the previously pressed impressions get flattened out when more pressings are made. So now I just lay them all out together and press them all in one pass.

Kate

[azrider]

I meant to try this last year, and didn't get to it. I have seen the stuff with the raised leaves. They look pretty awesome, but almost like they have been rolled. I just went outside and got some leaves and used a rolling pin.

1) Leaves don't stay still when being rolled into leather.

2) Wives get mad when you use the good rolling pin.

So now I have some wallet backs with leaves on them and three pieces of granite some weights on top of them. I will check on them in the morning. For those without presses, how do yo make this work?

Edited October 25, 2010 by azrider

[ClayB]

When I used the rolling pin to do this, I put an acrylic block over the leaf on the leather before rolling the rolling pin over it. That way the leaf stayed where I put it on the leather.

One other thing. If you use green leaves through a roller press that applies a lot of pressure, you risk squeezing the juice out of the leaf and onto the leather making a sticky mess. That happened to us when we tried using a small juniper tree branch. We had best results using dried leaves.

[dvawolk]

...It seems to improve the detail of the impression if you stiffen the leaf up a bit by applying a very light coat of lacquer all over the leaf and allow it to dry before pressing it.

To get that color effect, use block-dying. I posted a tutorial on this technique a couple of years ago... http://leatherworker...?showtopic=2712

Kate, thank you!

lacquering leaves is an iteresting idea, but for now i will stick to oak, beech, aspen and simillar hard leaved trees - just to get to know with this skill to some point...

thanks also for a link to block dyeing demo. i have just read it and i will write there some questions that appeared just now :-)

Klemen

[CitizenKate]

One other thing. If you use green leaves through a roller press that applies a lot of pressure, you risk squeezing the juice out of the leaf and onto the leather making a sticky mess. That happened to us when we tried using a small juniper tree branch. We had best results using dried leaves.

The dried leaves make a better impression, too. The only problem I've run into with dried leaves is, some of them tend to become brittle once they're dry. That's what prompted me to start experimenting with sealing the leaves with something to protect and stiffen them a bit. I mentioned lacquer earlier, but I had some other types of sealing finishes just laying around, so I've been trying them, and so far, I think I like the Minwax Polyurethane the best. I'm also hoping it will make it possible for the more delicate leaves to make a good impression, but haven't gotten that far yet...

Kate

[RussForcum]

I'm so glad I found this. I love the look of the leaf designs, and now I know how to do it myself!! Very grateful. Also, thanks for the tutorial on block dying. Needed that too

[SouthPaw]

Has anyone tried some type of fake leaves...like say the ones i saw in hobby lobby the other day?

[CitizenKate]

Has anyone tried some type of fake leaves...like say the ones i saw in hobby lobby the other day?

I just went over there and took a look at them. The ones I looked at won't work that well, because most of the small veins are just painted onto the leaf, and the leaf skin as a pretty coarse weave. I think you would be able to tell pretty easily from the impression that it's a fake leaf. Just my opinion.

Kate

[buffalocuir]

Great idea, I am going to try it thank you for all these explanations