Urban Goth

Been doing a couple of new ideas thats been in the back of my mind for a while, coffin coin purses, so the other weekend I put I couple together. The first one is just a simple coin purse in the shape of a coffin, just the one compartment. That turned out ok so thought I would go a little flasher and try out some other things and use some of my other bit of leather I've got. The second one is a little bit bigger and you can slip a card or two up the end of it, it has a cross cut into it with red ostrich leg leather inlaid into it, then the inside of the purse is lined with red lamb skin leather. They both turned out well I thought so am thinking of going bigger and making a one with a couple of compartments for money, a better card slot etc, then I might move onto a shoulder bag or something.

Dude that is some killer stick people. Love the cuffs as well, the skulls are fantastic any change of a picture of the cuff lying out flat?? Not a fish person myself but that is really nicely done.

Probably not coming over, moving hopefully in the next few months and probably won't be able to get time off from new job.

So its been a few days since the last post and the skull's just been sitting in the fridge in a wet towel, had a bit of free time this afternoon so pulled it out and did some trimming and finished molding the rest of it. Also put a coat of Fiebings white die on it when it was still wet to make it a bit whiter, will give it a few more coats as it dries and will take the newspaper out of the eyes etc. Sorry the pictures aren't as good, the good camera is at the shop at the moment.

A bit more background on this project, this is being done with lamb rawhide if I remember rightly from the class on Saturday. If you haven't used this before, it will go from this nice light colour like it is a the moment, to probably quite a weathered brownie streaky white, which you can see in the last photo of a shell I did the other day out of the same bit of rawhide. So did another 20 minutes on the skull, have stuffed it with more news paper to get some shape in around the jaw. There is now 2 flaps at the back of the head, this will be cut off at a later time and stitched back together. This has to be done anyway as I'm going to have to cut the rawhide off the skull once it is dry. Want to end up with 3 bits of rawhide, will cut the top of the skull off first to make the lid, then cut the back off to remove the rest of the skull. Then will cover the inside with red lambskin and put a leather base on the bottom and stitch the whole thing back together. Anyway this lot of work was stuffing it more with news paper round the jaw to start getting more shape to it, have started stuffing some of the flaps of extra rawhide in around the jaw as well to try and hide some of it, this can be worked a lot to make it thinner as I get further along, but am trying to get the basic shape right first. Still working on the top of the skull as well trying to get more of the carving to come out on the rawhide when its dry. So that's day 1 over wit, its now in the fridge wrapped in a wet towel.

Hey guys thanks for the comments. So have been working on and off on it for about an hour now, (started it about 5 hours ago though, have to let the rawhide dry to get it to hold its shape better), and have given it a trim up to get rid on the major excess around it. I won't be trimming it up anymore until it is finished. So have finished the back fairly much but have to let it dry further to do the finishing touches to the shaping at the bottom. The sides are coming along well as well. So the face is the major part I have left to work on, I have stuffed the eye sockets and behind the jaw with news paper to hold the raw hide in place. As you can see from the last 2 picture of the eyes that it works really well. Will work on it for a little bit more tonight and wrap it in a wet towel and put it in the fridge to keep it moist, have no idea how this will work but the whole thing is a learning process.

So have just had a couple of days of making a mask with rawhide over the weekend at the New Zealand Leather Conference, had never worked with it before so was an interesting few days. While doing that I thought I would have a go at making a skull handbag out of rawhide and lining it was thin leather etc. So I thought I would do a few photos as I went along. Here the first 4, took about 15 minutes to get this far. Will let it dry for a while and do a bit more, the rawhide is very floopy at the moment and doesn't hold a lot of shape.

I've had the same trouble with the purple, was fine when I put a light coat on, but when I made it darker I got green/gold streaks through it, looked really horrible. I did find though when I sealed it 99% of it went away. Also to JLSLeather, when you pour the dye off to try and get rid of the flecks do you filter it though something?

Very cool, I like the small details like the spiderweb. Just trying to get a pattern together to have a go at something like this myself.

Not sure what a line 24 snap is, I'm from New Zealand, we don't really have many suppliers here, only 1 real supplier here in Christchurch. They are just some snaps I picked up they were clearing as they were end of line.