DoubleC

I just noticed your purse, and wanted to tell you how nice I thought it was. Plus tell you thanks for probably saving me a lot of work and disappointment. I'm getting ready to work with exotics for the first time and wouldn't have thought to put a finish on a small place first to check for color. Cheryl

And Sarah, some of the things you just need to practice. I imagine most of us have made the same mistake you did on this in our beginnings (I'm still beginning and still make these kind of mistakes). Also you learn through practice how to turn your mistakes into something new. With this? I'd get another piece of leather, dye it black to match the design you made, and lace it to the top to extend it to the right length AND make it look like you intended to do it that way all along. Want to really fancy it up? Make the same design on the second piece only smaller and make it brown to match the other brown, then dye the rest black. When you do these types of things for yourself you can climb out of the box and turn them into something that isn't a mistake. That's the great thing about a hobby vs. business. So do all of the above too and have fun. Cheryl

Sylvia I have followed this thread recently starting at the beginning and up to here. I finally had enough money to order some leather and that may seem odd but I have been using the scraps given me months ago up until now except for my conchos. A nice young man called me back from SLC thinking I wanted him to cut me out a guitar strap when what I wanted was him to put a straight edge on one side so I could use my strap cutter. This is going to be my first (still remember what that was like back what seems like 10 years ago now?) and I'm already a nervous wreck about the belt holes from this. I ordered a separate strap at 1 & 1/2" they had on sale for $5.00 and I think it's maybe 60 inches so I have some wiggle room there for the adjusting strap but I would never have guessed it would be so hard to make belt holes even after seeing your pictures. I don't have any templates like you said are getting you by now, so the only thing I can think of doing is measuring, then clamping my actual belt I wear on my hold line and hope for the best since I'll have enough strap to make several tries. I can't afford to get anything like that now because at the last minute remembered I was going to need an oblong punch and man are THOSE expensive. Was 40 some bucks I hadn't counted on. Anyway, I'm going to try my best to have fun with it because I decided to do it so I could use different skills than my eyes and rhythm beads allow for. I try and practice other things to at least keep the little skill I have now and I'm setting aside time to do the dragon challenge this month so I can carve and bevel some. Anyway looks like from all you have discussed here I'm going to need a lot of luck getting the belt holes right. This has been a great thread. c

How cool Arron. Was that really hard to do? It's the first one I've seen on here so. I finished my set too and not spoiling anything since I couldn't stand it and had to show my friend already, LOL

OK, read and bookmarked the light box. How easy is that setup? And I have a desk lamp already so just need to pick up the paper and the full spectrum light bulb.

OMG, I take the worst pictures in the world and just YESTERDAY took my old digital with me to my voc counselor meeting and I had someone else use it so I could see if I needed a tripod only or a new camera AND tripod (very shaky hands) and I have been on this forum months and never noticed this specialty. As you see I'm however the queen of run-on sentences. I feel like a light bulb went off, pun intended. I have two bazillion questions.

I'm working right this second on a leather bracelet and choker. Glad you mentioned this thread again Aaron. Cheryl (Post the ball when you're finished ok?)

Hi Shooter. I came to this forum looking for Katass and found a beautiful example by you. AND found katass. I'm getting some of the small pieces of exotics from SLC and I'm going to make my first guitar strap PLUS use my first exotic. I asked a friend if she'd ever done inlay and she sent me in search of katass, and I found your overlay instead. I'm going to look for his inlays too but at least I know this is an option that can look beautiful. And yours does, it's really beautiful. Cheryl

I want to make my dog an 'eye' collar, thought I'd let her advertise for me because everyone always wants to pet her. She's a mix spaniel/blue tick coon hound and is mostly silver and black, with just a little brown. I wanted to do the eyes vinegaroon black but with the eyeball brown as usual. I'll post one of my eyes and also her. I made some vinegaroon and love it as black since it's such a hard color to work with and keep ON anything. I was going to do the connecting pieces of the leather silver with translucent acrylic paint. If block or resist won't work, I guess I can reverse the design. Thanks Cheryl. Skadi and Eye below.

Well DUH Cheryl, I never thought about you running it clear to the edge. I just ordered a bag of the SLC pieces of different exotic leathers and they're described as being pretty small so I had planned to maybe just inlay some on my strap. Sorry ouch, I'm out of my league because this will be a first for me. Cheryl

Hey ouch, I was going to ask about exotic inlays on a guitar strap too. But I can tell you where to get the best edge advice you'll ever get. Go to 'how do I do that' and Read Bobby Park's (Hidepounder) tutorial on edge finishing. Follow it and it will look more profession than you'll ever think something could. Cheryl

Thanks Sylvia. I am so happy about it.

Thank you Ronnie. I am truly humbled my machine is going there. Cheryl

No Mike, those pictures were too good to a recent singer addict :-) Cheryl

They are beasts aren't they? But really I've shipped three already and you do it just like anything else. I used that heavy duty Seran wrap stuff that someone sent me something in, and plastic store bags, and peanuts to fill in the surrounding spaces and I sent one from VT to CA for 31.00. So charge at least that much. styrofoam, brown paper bags. The main thing I tried to do was keep the spool from going through the box so I had a lot of packing between it and the box because the one I sold didn't have removable ones. What kind do you have and what do you want for it? I'm not wanting to buy it, LOL since I finally got rid of my last one after going on a binge but I can give you some ideas of what I've seen them selling for. And already having the hand crank is a big plus. At least $40.00 m ore I'd say always and more depending on what kind you have and the shape it's in. Why don't you pm me Mike and I'll help anyway I can. Cheryl

Well Scary I called him and asked if he'd ship and he would, but he basically is looking at shipping a lot more than I can afford to buy. A friend of his passed away that had a leather business and he's just helping the son get rid of things. Then he said he was on his way to bed and I apologized and said, but you don't have an email on craigslist and it says call nights. he said, 'but it's 10:00.' I apologized and wanted to tell you if YOU'RE interested in them he'll cram as many as you want into a medium priority mail box, but not so crazy about doing just one or two. Thanks though for telling me. Cheryl

I know, his website would try the patience of the Pope. It's almost like you have to already know what you're looking for and how nice it looks before you can find it. I don't remember exactly, but I think on the front page he has a link to hardware, or something like that, and THEN you go to a page with a drop down menu of the type you're looking for, THEN you get another drop down menu that says like buckle 19836, buckle 19837 etc. But he has so MUCH stuff that there's no way he could put all those pictures up every time say someone opened hardware. Right now I want a belt buckle set from him, you know, with the buckle, metal keeper and belt end? But I don't have the energy to go and try and run it down. I decided to wait until tomorrow. I love the price of those. So since we've run across each other on here before I feel like I can show my ignorance :-) What exactly do you do with deer hide? Tomorrow is my 'monthly' shopping day and maybe I could talk him (or her) into shipping if I knew what I was going to do with it. I mean I've felt deer skin before and I know it was very soft so could I use it to line my things, or well, I'm sorry but I really don't know. Thanks for your help and shame on you for not living here with your family :-) Cheryl

Glendon, if I could have afforded it I would have donated the machine, I was so humbled that on EBAY he would write and ask ME about mine. I am just so happy this is going some place like that because they have a lot of good years left in them if people can see past some of the age warts. Thanks for writing, Cheryl

I just sold my last Singer Sewing Machine I rehabbed. The guy told me this then sent a picture to me. Actually, you might appreciate this then: I'm the head of living history aboard the USS OLYMPIA, Admiral Dewey's flagship, the oldest steel warship in the world, and a museum here in Philadelphia. If I purchase this machine I'm planning on putting the hand crank back on, and using the machine on the ship to mend our 1898-period Navy uniforms in view of the public. So if you're wondering if this will go to a good home, it will be used as the sailors used them 120 years ago, aboard the only remaining vessel from the time period.

I just sold my last Singer sewing machine I rehabbed. The guy told me this and then sent a picture. Actually, you might appreciate this then: I'm the head of living history aboard the USS OLYMPIA, Admiral Dewey's flagship, the oldest steel warship in the world, and a museum here in Philadelphia. If I purchase this machine I'm planning on putting the hand crank back on, and using the machine on the ship to mend our 1898-period Navy uniforms in view of the public. So if you're wondering if this will go to a good home, it will be used as the sailors used them 120 years ago, aboard the only remaining vessel from the time period.

Again I'm not really familiar with the type your are talking about b ut I would try Jeremiah Watt at ranch2arena.com This man is renown for his metal work and he doesn't have any minimums. I bought some standard horse tack buckles, beautifully etched from him and the only reason I go 8 was because they were TWO bucks a piece but with 8 they were $1.90. I don't consider that expensive, and he's one of the nicest men-his wife the same that you could work with. The picture I uploaded shows one of his $1.90 etched buckles. Good luck.

Tom I feel for you I have been trying to make a leather frame for my business license and just gave up. This was my BEST attempt. I'm going to just buy a frame, use it to mark my corners and glue the leather to the front but I still know it will end up wrong. I have tried to master this technique for 20 years, first with wood and I can't do it no mater what. I hope you have better and faster luck. Cheryl

I'd try Jeremiah's site, ranch2arena. He makes gorgeous hardware. Cheryl

Thanks. I did it because my voc counselor thought it made good business sense but he's not someone who used to waste their whole day there. And I don't want to be there day in and day out. I opened it, it's free, and put pictures that were current then and have never been back to it I don't think. I got a notice (it'll NEVER end I don't think) that one of my friends had a BD coming up this week. I opened the email and didn't have a clue who the person was. These people are NOT my friends. some day I'll figure out how to quit receiving them but I've been lazy and just delete the stuff. Again thanks for getting my butt in gear last night and getting my site up to date, and looks like I need to check it again because of internet issues :-) Cheryl

Smart move time wise, I wish I had the time back I wasted on facebook in the past. Never go anymore, but my voc counselor recommended I open a business page on there and I did but I never go to it or update it. I have a facebook button so people can 'like me' on facebook. I'll be honest with you Paul, I don't give a s**t if they like me or not, buy or move on, LOL. You motivated me to put my 'about' page back last night and I took a lot of little crap off, all of the prices, uploaded newer pics to my products page, and said 'drop me a line.' I don't bite, and I'm not high pressure. I talked a girl out of buying something yesterday I knew she didn't need and I was afraid she really couldn't afford it. People can write me all day and I'll answer them whether they buy or not. I like when something sells but I'm not going to hunt them down with a sales pitch if they email :-) So yours is wonderful and you were also motivating. So thanks Paul, Cheryl