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DoubleC

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Posts posted by DoubleC

  5. Posted · Report reply

    Good Chris, I am looking forward to seeing them. Yes unfortunately the pics were taken by me, but with my 8YO digital camera. The choker set was taken with my new one. I thought it was me that kept taking the bad pictures until I found out it didn't have enough MP to take a good picture. Oh well 8 years of frustration is good for you right? LOL. I can just about free hand any picture by looking at it but have no memory anymore for creating my own. I come up with an idea then go google searching for a piece I like. I am currently working on a pair of sandals with a dragon fly as the subject, but I am not gonna brag about that right now, LOL> Glad my foot will cover most of it. Maybe the second one will be better.......

  6. Posted · Report reply

    Chris, I have been thinking about this thread a lot. I have art, I mean actual pictures I free hand drew looking at another picture, and either painted them or dyed them and used antique. Antique is a leather medium just like any other and has it's time and place. I disagree with JLS that just because he doesn't use it, it ain't worth using. I understand how he feels because I feel a certain type of snobbery toward people who only do Sheridan carving. If you can't get good at placing a mules foot in the right spot of a flower, vine or leaf after doing the exact same thing over and over maybe leather isn't your medium. I think there's nothing wrong with using the 'paint by number' method of learning a craft if you move beyond it. I was in Sheridan and you sure don't see any roses, leaves and vines there. So I think a lot of people started this craft with kits. I wasn't fortunate enough to be able to do that, work at a Farmers Market where if you don't make it, bake it or grow it you don't bring it. So all of my things were designed by me, good or bad to begin with. I don't carve everything. I have a lot of custom orders and do one offs where I never really get to learn a certain technique that's used in the order. I have used inlay, overlay, paint, dye, antique, stamps, the basic 7, and a few other things. I have drawn art and braided art. I have some superb failures too. I use those :) I think the enemy of art is complacency. If you are always satisfied with whatever you churn out then I don't think you can be an artist. Can a craft person strive to be better each time? I don't know. Probably. I'm not sure being good at a craft isn't art. I don't know when we started seeing masons or contractors as less than artists. They have great items....they have superb failures. I live in Vermont which used to be a big marble industry state. I defy anyone to look at some of these churches and buildings around here and say they aren't art. Below are some of my art pieces. I apologize for the crappy pictures. Cheryl

    post-27490-0-68475600-1434398344_thumb.j

    post-27490-0-96639400-1434398763_thumb.j

    post-27490-0-90398900-1434398790_thumb.j

    post-27490-0-41570600-1434398806_thumb.j

  8. Posted · Report reply

    I guess I'm with oldhat. I have my 5 & 10 buck items that are well made but not very artistic. You have to have those to survive the farmer's market regime. But I also have pieces I consider art, and they vary from necklaces to a square piece of leather painted on. I consider it art and maybe I use the term more loosely than you do. But if I can make something beautiful out of leather then I am artist. Cheryl

  11. Posted · Report reply

    No Conrad I wasn't offended and that's the thing about computers, it's hard to understand the emotion behind the typed word. I just couldn't imagine how anyone could click a whole hide at once or do all those things in 15 minutes. Now I'm finding out the commercial, big clickers vs. the one I intend to buy. I make leather goods too but doubt from what I've read here clicking for others would keep me from being able to continue to do that. I work 3 farmer's markets a week, and sell on etsy and FB too and getting ready to build a website so I will be able to keep pretty busy without additional clicking :) It just seemed like it might be a viable option if I could do someone else's while I was doing mine. Thanks for you comments I really appreciate them. Cheryl

  12. Posted · Report reply

    If you are going to use 7/8 oz you're going to have to sew it right side out. That heavy of leather isn't intended to be flipped. Also if you posted a picture maybe some one else could come up with another suggestion. BTW water doesn't hurt leather although you want your completed project to have a finish on it like resolene to help protect it from the elements. Cheryl

  14. Posted · Report reply

    Hi Tom. I didn't expect it would work that fast or no one would ever buy a tippman or a cobra clicker. BTW they sell the plates on texas custom dies and one of the places someone gave me on this thread has them already bored out. Until I see mine in person I don't expect to understand the differences. Might be exactly the same plates. I didn't know it required that kinda work so if it takes 20 clicks to get on product I would have to adust my my prices. See? This place is full of info. Thanks Tom. I didn't know that although I plan to talk to Texas Dies before I buy anything. Cheryl

  17. Posted · Report reply

    Big Lew I didn't answer your post and I apologize. i don't see where living in MI would make this more difficult for you. You order a die and have them ship it to me instead. But I like your idea about buying little things in batches I've already done. I intend to do that. Maybe I should just make this post the one where people 1/2 way understand what I'm going to do.

    I'm buying a clicker next month. I'm buying it for myself so I can spend less time on cutting out small things over and over. A friend suggested I:

    1. click for other people. This would include me having the die sent to me, storing it for the person and also using my dies if the person wanted. I could do t on any leather the person wanted but would raise the cost per sq. foot to the next even number. Meaning if someone wanted me to use Herman oak back for 8.99 it would cost them 10.00 a sq foot to have that done. If you want something in Milliflora don't think I'm going to charge $10.00 a sq. foot for that. If it's 18.99 then it would cost the customer 20.00 a sq foot. Or 14.99 would go to 15.00 so it wouldn't be that much of a handling charge. Because that's what it is. I am handling the leather, buying it up front assuming you're going to pay me, and storing the rest in rolls until you want more so I have to 'handle' it. Simple. You don't pay for what I click? That's simple I'll just use the leather myself and keep your die until you do. Like Sioux said, I won't be buying dies up front for people, that will be totally on the customer. I'll keep it for you, take care of it for you but I won't buy it for you. Too much room for error there. You know exactly hat you want get it made. So say you sent me a wallet die for Horween lather. At 15.00 a sq. foot assuming i could get two out of a sq. foot your cost would probably be 12.50 plus shipping. I'm assuming unlike my speedy friend above that it would take me 10 minutes to click out all the wallet parts getting the most use out of the leather. So it would be 1/2 the Horween sq ft. for one which makes it 7.50 plus 5 minutes for me to click out the parts for one wallet which is 5 more. This is not rocket science. The main costs to the customers is buying the dies. From then on they're not going to be able to make a Horween wallet cut out for $12.50.

    2. People that wanna use my dies.I intend to have dies for several different projects that I do, guitar strap ends, guitar strap punched slots, bracelets, cuffs,wallets, interiors, geometric shapes for inlay work, etc. If you want these things clicked for you it would be the price of the leather plus my time x 2. That means for a guitar strap, prepunched for you out of Herman Oak leather might end up being 2 sq feet (i haven't measured this) plus 5 minutes to click x 2. Total cost would be $30.00 plus shipping, ready for you to finish. This is probably more than Tandy or other places charge for a guitar strap but Tandy isn't using HO to cut their's or cutting them to length. This is an example of one of the more expensive projects. Key fobs you could probably get at least 10 from a sq. foot, again I haven't measured times 4 minutes x 2. Would make the individual keyfob $1.80. That's if you use my dies. I have to sharpen them, keep them in shape and store them. And I won't use cheap leather. If you want that I'm sure other places, those thousands I keep hearing about LOL will click them for you.

    3. Kits I will sell on my website. Maybe I will want 5 wallets to work on and get in my booth. While I'm clicking I might as well click 20. Sort them out, bag them, and I keep 5 and put the other 15 on my site. Since I was already c,licking for myself and didn't have to change hides they might go for 15.00 a wallet with all the parts clicked out, including the one for the top inside that hides the flesh side of the leather. Those would not be made to order so wouldn't cost as much. You could purchase them on my site.

    4. ME I'm buying the clicker primarily for me so if no one is interested in 100 key fobs in 5 different shapes, or 5 different kinds of bracelets, then I still have them for me. And maybe there are thousands of people who will do this, I don't know. I just know no one has ever returned a product of mine and hopefully never will do to shoddy craftsmanship. As far as people clicking out their own scraps, I think that's a wise use of them. But I won't be accepting anyone's scraps for this project.

    All of the examples here are estimates off the top of my head. I seriously doubt it will cost $1.80 to click a key fob or 30 for a guitar strap but was using them as examples. Chryl

  18. Posted · Report reply

    Well I see there's been some action on this post since I was here, I see. What started out as a simple poll has turned into a 'to click or not to click' question, LOL. Conrad if you can click out several hides for wallet parts in 15 minutes I think YOU should be a reseller. That doesn't seem possible to me but maybe it is and one kit would make your money back you spent clicking all of them.

    Jeff as usual I don't know what you mean, must be the water around there.
    Randi you bring up some very valid points some of which I'll try to answer in a post here. I simply wanted to see if there was an interest in clicked products. I seem to be getting everything but that answer although my psychic senses tell me there is :) I will put how I see the services working below in a post and maybe then you can judge better if you think the services will work. I really thank all of you and enjoy everyone's input. Cheryl

  19. Posted · Report reply

    well big sioux i know how some people can be so I understand. I think it will pay for itself in the time I save but whether I can make money on it remains to be seen. But anyone that buys a die has to pay postage to have it shipped to them, so that's not an additional cost. It just ships to me instead. I would keep the die for them until they needed more clicked items if they wanted me too. I think people are making this sound more difficult than it is. Cheryl

  20. Posted · Report reply

    Hi CG. I will have my own dies of things like key fobs, bracelets, that sort of thing. I'm still going to be leatherworking too. It's just if someone wants a headstall clicked shaped like a sequoia tree, probably not going to have that on hand. :) I'm just feeling my way along here. I think a lot of people get annoyed at doing the small money makers over and over by hand. I know I do, There's only so may ways you can make a key fob and doing it over and over is boring when you're trying to take advantage of your time and cut several at a time. I'm hoping I can make this work but if not I still want a clicker for myself. Cheryl

  22. Posted · Report reply

    I am getting a clicker next month and would like to offer services to other people as long as I don't get 20,000 LOL. I figured it took me 4 years to buy one and maybe some people just have one item they want clicked, like a bracelet. How it would work is like this I think. You would send me your die, tell me what kind of leather you wanted used and pay for me to order that, then from what I've seen so far is the service fee would be $1.00 per minute. If I click you out 4 bracelets in that minute then it would be 25 cents per bracelet plus the price of the leather. Now no matter clicker or not you need leather in this business. So you could get your bracelets in your favorite leather with the only difference being you wouldn't have to cut them. The initial outlay of money would be the die but at this price per product I don't see it taking long to recoup your money in time saved. I could also send the left over leather to you with your shipping price.

    So again would you rather have someone hassle with it or do it yourself? Thanks, because I'm fairly certain I will be offering this service starting next month. Cheryl

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