Ferg

My .02: You certainly do not need a laser to make holes, hand punches are relatively cheap. 5-7 oz. Leather for wallets and small items. 6-7 oz. for purses and notebook covers and items of that type. The heavier weight leathers are for holsters, saddles, tack, etc. 2-3 oz. Lining leathers. Vegetable tanned cowhide if you are going to do any tooling. Best all around part of the hide is the shoulders. You can buy Single (about 8 square feet) or Double Shoulders, (13 to 17 square feet) Tandy carries most anything you need for starters. One beginner kit is normally $200 on sale for $60. The very basic kit is normally $90 on sale for $30. Take your pick. ferg

Bobby, If you write a book I will be first in line to buy one so get over the "Writer's Block". LOL ferg

You are designing and making the art of leather for tomorrow. Thank you for sharing your talent, let us see many more. ferg

Hi Johanna, I had some leather sent to Greg Ditton from Tandy. I sent him an e-mail telling him he would be getting a package from them, not to refuse it. Obviously, he didn't read the mail. I think he returned it to Tandy. I cannot get in touch with him. Telephone is disconnected, it was a Land Line so maybe he is using a cell. If you have any way of contacting him and in all your spare time, LOL can you "push" a message to him that it was from me? Thanks a million ferg Marion Ferguson Name: Marion Ferguson UserName: 50 years leather IP Address: 64.56.112.27 Email Address: marion@donet.com

Greg, I forgot to tell you there are a lot of Tutorials on this forum for beginners and everything else. Good place to start. Your Goody box should get to you Monday or Tuesday. ferg

You are a true artist in every adjective I can think of. Your family must be very proud of you. Viewing what you do with art and leather is breathtaking. Some of us have a God given talent that flourishes with age, I hope I live long enough to see many more of your productions. ferg

I love it!!!!!!! ferg

As long as the item is not too big to fit into your mailbox at home or where ever, you can ship PriOrity. We haul shipments every day from September through January to the Post Office. We have an account with Endicia Buy postage electronically which is posted to our designated Credit Card account. I wrote a program for Any and all Mail over 13 oz. The Endicia software takes care of all first class plus International, we ship lots to Canada. We printout the labels for UPS and International. Our clients send us the mailing labels attached to each order, BUT !!! We do all the printing since we receive all orders via computer. I wrote a program to transfer most all orders we receive into Excel then into our Data base that I wrote also. Piece of cake We don't even bother with insurance or tracking with the Post Office, too much hassle. Yes, we ship larger packages via UPS. Our customers routinely receive their merchandise from Ohio to the West Coast in no more than 5 days via PriOrity Mail. ferg

Nice job. Might make the water a little more pastel. ferg

This forum and the other aspects of it stay real nice, friendly, and homey just as I suspect Johanna and Kate fit that description. PLEASE!!! Remove the "Human Leather" postings from the forum. That actually makes me very ill as I am sure others feel the same way. Name: Marion Ferguson UserName: 50 years leather IP Address: 64.56.112.27 Email Address: marion@donet.com

The UPS stores are traditionally higher than if you have an account with them. We used to ship thousands of items with them but they have gotten so high priced, we send 90% via the post office. They do not lose more than 4 or 5 a year out of 20,000, we just cover that. Still cheaper than UPS. ferg

A little too shiny for my taste. Is it your photo or is the lace loose in some spots? Cute design. ferg

I don't. ferg

IMHO Natural defects, as long as they aren't garish, tend to add charm and reality to a piece. I can get "0" defects with a piece of plastic. A bright light shown across the leather is most likely to show the imperfections when the leather is dry. ferg

I have a few duplicates I will share with you, if you do not already have them. PM me and I will let you know what I have. ferg

Well, I am considered a bad ---- by a few on the forum but I see what I see and I still think constructive criticism is one of the best teachers so here goes. You may have intentionally made the stitching holes large, I believe they should be smaller so the eye catches the stitch and not the "hole". On the inside shot of your wallet, right side top, is it your photo or are the lacing holes "whopper jawed" ? That description is compliments of my mom. Next time you photograph your projects, either lay them flat on a table or the floor so you can adjust your view to make the item appear "what it is" Just minor adjustments that I see. Practice, practice, practice, and keep hammering away. ferg

Only answer I can give for this... You need the cut done by the swivel knife to determine the depth of a nice clean bevel. Some instances will call for beveling without cutting, I don't think around letters is one of them in my book ferg

I may have thinned the white but the colors look as though I painted full strength. Still, I may have used a white "wash" under the colors. My wife and youngest daughter are fine art pros, they almost always use white Gesso for instance, under a color. ferg

Nothing stayed on the plexi-glass. I have removed the piece from the PG. The cement is only on the leather and no the plexi-glass did not melt anywhere:) ferg

I have two of Bob Douglas Awls plus the haft. Amazing piece of equipment. Do not hesitate to spend your hard earned money for these awls. ferg

Personal experience; I made some items for folks, kids mostly, that I used the old acrylics on. Butterflies, comic characters, etc. READ THIS 40 to 45 years ago. I have one that I know two of the youngsters carried extensively. I am actually sitting here looking at this little purse with a butterfly painted bright red, orange and white. The white doesn't look too great but I don't think it did when I done it The back has a large butterfly painted with a dark blue, light blue, green, and white. All of the colors are very bright and show no wear at all. That bit of info may not do you any good but...... ferg

Never thought of the gum eraser, I will try that. Thanks, ferg

Greg, There have been a number of folks advertise, maybe by word of mouth, on this forum for the making of "Makers Stamps". Do a search inside the forum. ferg

This may not hit a note with you Deno. Printed work is not doing well these days with a few exceptions. That said, I would consider a Digital version. There are several websites with downloads as well as DVD's for sale. I would do a lot of soul searching as well as shaking a lot of doors real hard. Printed books are expensive to publish even if you self publish. I think you have a noble idea for the book but I wouldn't count on a lot of money to disburse. That is a tough one. ferg

Acrylics used for painting on canvas etc. would be "iffy" when thinned too much. The Cova colors are nothing more than acrylics with maybe a slightly different formulation. I thinned some extremely, such as a few drops of the Cova in maybe a fluid ounce of water with no problem. Use the extremely thinned product for a wash. We found that a wash of white made other colors "stand out" when used over the white wash. Allow the applications to dry completely before you re-coat. ferg