Beaverslayer

That is really nice work, the stiching, carving and dye is perfect....great job.

David, Sicksteene and rosiart, thank you for the compliments, they are much appreciated. rosiart, yes she is very pleased with it.

Nicely done Sicksteene, I love skulls as well.

Thank you all for the compliments, they are much appreciated. Tom, yes I'm having fun, but this one did play a bit of havoc on the old fingers.

Okay, that is cool, I love those teeth... By the way, welcome to Leatherworker.net

Thanks Mike, the lambskin color is a dark chocolate brown. I can't really take credit for the design though. My Cousin was going to buy a Gucci Emily Chain purse for $1090.00 USD. She sent me a picture of it, and as usual, I said.....sure I can make you one of those, just not in that color. She asked me the price I would charge her, and she agreed to pay $280.00 CDN. Bluesman, thank you. It's garment Lambskin from Tandy, not sure of the weight, it's quite thin and soft, but very nice to work with. I've been using it for a number of years and have made hats and vests with it.

Here's a purse I just completed for my Cousin from Quebec, Canada. It is lambskin over 2/3 oz Veg Tan leather. The shoulder pad has an Ostrich Leg inlay, as well as the triangular design that holds the top closed by friction. The shoulder strap is made with 4 double chrome chains with veg tan spacers. The inside of the purse has two lambskin pockets. The entire purse is sewn together using Kangaroo lace instead of normal sewing.

Bill, Barry Kings website does have a contact link on every page of his site, here is a screen shot of his main page.

Tiara, the "Facility" that you talk of, is in NO WAY a processing plant. When I said it was a "Low Rental Condominium" I mean it is what would be called "The Projects" in Chicago, Detroit and other cities. This was a residential "Low Low" income residential complex, where I suspect a lot of people go to purchase illicit drugs and such. Whomever owns and runs this business actually lives there and only does on-line sales. I myself, really like to be able to touch, taste and feel what I am buying, especially something exotic like this. If they would have allowed me to come in and look at their products, I can almost guarantee I would have spent at least $200.00 maybe more if he had some shark skins. Tom, I just noticed that your my neighbor...lol...where abouts in town do you live, if you don't mind saying.

Well Tiara, I took the road trip today, started off going to Tandy seeing as the address for Sea Leather Wear is only 3 blocks away from Tandy. Well, it turns out that the address is a low rental condominium complex. I was somewhat dismayed. So I decided to phone the number and was told that they only deal with on-line orders. I explained very nicely that I was sitting in the parking lot with a fistful of money I wanted to spend, but no go. They told me I would have to order from the website and have it mailed to me. I probably would have spent hundreds of dollars, but they missed the opportunity. Sorry I never got to see the fish crust and tell you about it.

rosiart, very nicely done, it looks real good. Another thing you can use is Sharpies and Pentel also makes some very good colored markers.

Well if that's you just bluffing your way through it, I'll be sure to NEVER play poker with you. You did an exceptional job on those.

Cheryl, I Googled SeaMonkey and see that it is a Mozilla written browser. Here is a link to the Adblock Plus for SeaMonkey, it's probably the same as FireFox. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/seamonkey/addon/adblock-plus/?src=hp-dl-featured

Cheryl, I have no idea what SeaMonkey is, if it's a browser, my suggestion is to only use FireFox, no need to use two different browsers to surf the web.

WinterBear, that's funny. A number of years ago, a pro football player had accepted an offer to play football here in Canada. He actually thought while on the flight here, how they were going to land an airplane of ice, and what it would be like to live in an igloo..true story... I have also been asked by tourists, how long Canada has had those little sealed cups of cream for our coffee at restaurants.

LNLeather, Is your sister sending the pictures to your e-mail account via her phone? If this is the case, just "Disable" Adblock Plus on your e-mail account webpage. You can setup Adblock Plus to be disabled on some pages, and enabled on others. If your on a webpage that has some sort of Advertisement, or built in pop-up, there should be a little "Block" button that pops up on the top right side of the Ad or popup, if you click the "Block" button, this will disable it on that page. It's a great program to use on Facebook.

hunio, that is simply beautiful, almost makes me want to go out and get an iPhone5, but alas, I'm a Blackberry man...

Maybe try this place out, people bid on hauling your stuff for you. http://www.uship.com/ca/

Nope sorry I have never tried anything like this before. But I have to thank you for posting the link, that company is only a short distance from my house, and I never knew they existed, so I'm going to have to go on a road trip and check them out.

I get the cheese cloth at the local fabric store, I think you may also be able to get it at Home Depot as well, just not in big pieces.

If you are going to join the two pieces edge to edge (butt joint) what I do is apply a bit of glues to each edge of the pieces. The carefully slide them together so they come into contact with each other. I will use a lace roller and roll across the two joined pieces, not along the seam. Then I cut strips of pigskin, if my lace joint is going to be 1/2" wide, I will cut 3/4" strips. Then I take masking tape and along the seam (on the inside) I will stick the tape so it allows me to apply glue to the area where the strip will be applied. So a 3/4" strip I will stick tape 3/8" on either side of the seam, then apply glue to this area. Apply glue to the pigskin strip, and once the glue is tacky, place the strip onto the area of your joined pieces. Be sure to take the tape off first. Once I have the strip applied, I then run my roller over it to be sure to get a real good seal. Now that the two pieces are joined together, you can mark and punch the holes you require for lacing. The reason for the strip of pigskin on the inside, is because when you lace, on the inside the lace runs in a straight line and does not offer any support or strength to the seam. On the outside where the lace is seen, it crosses over from piece to piece many times, adding strength and support as well as giving you that "Wow Factor" look. If you check out either of the tutorials I have here on Leatherworker, it shows you how to do what I have just explained. Here's the link to the tutorials. Hat Tutorial http://leatherworker...?showtopic=2488 Vest Tutorial http://leatherworker...?showtopic=1774 Hope this helps, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.

I was told a long time ago that shipping leather in plastic was a no-no. I use "cheese cloth" to wrap anything that is to be shipped now, and then foam peanuts.

When I started in leather work, it was because I wanted a leather hat. I tried making one using a sewing machine, but I could not for the life of me sew in a straight line. I bought a little book called "How to Lace" and from there started my journey. For the first year or so, all I made was hats, and every one of them was laced together not sewn. I made a lot of hats back then. I then wanted a leather vest that was nothing like you could buy at Wally World or even your local Harley shop. This endeavor took quite some time to figure out, as lacing one together was far more challenging than just sewing it together. Well, once I finished the first vest, it was off to the races from there. I sold more vests while getting my morning coffee at 7-11, than anywhere else. As time went on, people would ask if I could make them this or that, and I would just say "Yes" even before knowing if it was possible or not. I've had to go out and buy something just to tear it apart, to see how it was made in so I could get a pattern and understanding of how to do it. From there, I would add embellishments to give it a much more custom look, so people seeing the end product knew it wasn't "store bought" and word got out of my work. I got out of doing leather for the last few years, as I got horn swaggled into helping a good friend start a sandblasting business and actually sandblasting. I have just gotten back into leather again and set up shop in my sons tattoo shop. I noticed at the shop, that a far greater number of woman would get tattoos than men, so I've decided to gear my work towards women. They would come into the shop and would be carrying a fancy looking purse, so I would ask them "how much did you pay for that purse". Well it amazed me, every one of them were so proud that they had payed (in most cases) over $500.00 for them. Women these days are the ones with all the money, and have no qualms about spending large amounts of it on something that will make them look good. With women, if you can show them something beautiful, and explain to them that you can make them something like this using their favorite color, or add this or that to it to match their eyes or hair color, they will open that $500.00 purse so fast. Just the other day when I posted pictures of the purse I just finished using the stingray and crocodile on Facebook, I got three orders for purses. The one I am working on first is a Gucci that the lady was willing to pay $1090.00 for. I Have about $35.00 worth of material into it, and will spend about six hours putting it together, I sold it for $280.00. This same lady told me she had just bought a small clutch purse from Gucci made from stingray, she payed $1995.00 for it. I looked at a picture of it online, and was amazed. So, for me it has always been about finding what potential customers wanted and just saying "Yes I can do that" then going from there.

Thanks for the compliments Cheryl and Aurelie, they are much appreciated.

Bill, Thanks for the compliments and critique. The crocodile lid was the customers idea, she wanted something that would "create attention" (woman and purses are funny). Personally, I would have liked to just continue on with the black goatskin, but, as this is a "Custom" piece, I had to go with the customer. The bottom, had me perplexed for a bit, as I didn't want to form it out of the veg tan as this would have caused problems with the form, so I went with it this way. I think it turned out okay, and the second color of lace helps to add contrast to the look. The one thing I really should have done different, is the lace color on the crocodile flap, after looking at it, I think black lace would have been much nicer. Again, thanks for the compliments, they mean a lot.