cercyonis

Thank you, Guapo. My mom has the wallet, and she loves it. I'm working on a bible cover for a friend now, and already got the front decoration off-center. Ahhh, learning curves.

Suntanning, eh? Hadn't heard of that one, either! Does it darken thru super shene? Thank you so much for the praise. It really helps when a person has little clue what they're doing! I don't even have a logo yet. I've stirred up some interest in custom smartphone cases, so maybe I'll have to think about that. ~Jennifer

Thank you so much -- it was an insane amount of work. Seran wrap -- great idea! I hadn't seen that suggestion in any of the books I've been poring over. So glad I found this forum.

Thank you guys, so great to get feedback. I kind of came to the conclusion this morning that it was what it was, and I super-shened the rest. I told my mom what happened, and I think she'll forgive me. Rookie mistakes -- I'll try to be more careful next time. I also screwed up by putting super shene not just ON the painted part, but all around it, too. After saddle-soaping the rest of the piece, I noticed the leather was darker where the super shene wasn't. URG! Plus, that made staining around the flowers and initials impossible. Dumb Dumb Dumb. At any rate, here are pics of the finished design. I am now gluing the liner and tomorrow will stitch.

I have worked about, oh, a MILLION hours on this clutch purse / wallet for my mother. I accidentally got a drop of green stain in the wrong area, and thought I could get it off if I quickly blotted it with solvent. Big mistake -- all I got were indelible stains on my leather! I have since tried several different things -- saddle soap, rubbing alcohol, deglazer, lemon juice, deglazer and then saddle soap again, in that order. The saddle soap worked the best, but didn't completely get rid of the blotches. (Unfortunately I'm a perfectionist.) Lemon juice, diluted 1:1, lightened every area it touched, grrrrrrr. I already put super shene on and around the main design, so staining or antiquing is out. Any ideas from the experienced folks about how to get these out? I hate to add super shene to the remainder of the work until I know that nothing else can be done. Also, I'm afraid it will emphasize the blotches. The first photo is before any "treatments," and the second (close-up) photo is after. ~Jennifer

Thanks, Chris. Beautiful green and blue in that picture!

Thanks for the reply, Tim. I was using Createx airbrush acrylic. I bought out someone's hobby, and a lot of that kind of paint came with the deal. I didn't think it was only useful for airbrushing, but maybe? I tried a different type after reading your post, and it worked a lot better. The new paint does have some sparkles in it, though, which might help. I really like your black-eyed susan purse! I'm putting yellow Echinacea flowers on my work. Maybe I'll be brave enough to post pics when I'm done.

I'm making a clutch purse with flowers on the front. I wanted the flowers to be bright yellow, but I don't have a dye that will do that. Is there such a thing? I tried yellow acrylic paint, and it was horrible. I can't stand the chalky look on my beautiful leather. I started by diluting it with water, which just seemed to make the yellow chalk spread out more. So I applied it straight up. Yuck. I wiped it all off with solvent. I hope that was an okay thing to do -- I found out by accident that it removed it. I'm assuming deglazer does the same thing. I found few threads on using regular oil paints. I put a little yellow on some scrap leather, and the color was definitely better than acrylic. I'm worried about the oil penetrating the leather and what effect that might have, though. Plus, I've heard drying time is protracted, so I'm not going to do oil paint on the clutch purse. I purchased a bunch of different Sharpies and other markers, which are quite nice for solid coloring. Not too great where subtle blending is required, though. What other options are there for bright colors? ~Jennifer

Heyyyyyy, nice video! Thanks! But I did notice that your presser foot doesn't extend out in front of the needle and top feed dog (?) like mine does. I have three presser feet. Two are left and both extend in front of the needle, and one is a double, and both of its sides extend pretty far out, too. I guess I could grind off one of the left presser feet, since I have two. That's probably easier said than done. The presser feet I've found for the Artisan are $65 to $95, which seems like an awful lot.

Thanks again for the responses. I'm trying to avoid hand-sewing, naturally, and I did try the rivet at the buckle. I just thought I'd save money and time if I could just sew up to the buckle instead of messing with the rivet. I thought about somehow "shortening" a presser foot, too, but which one? I don't know enough to know which one could stand to be possibly ruined. Well, onto gaining experience.