DoubleC
-
Content Count
2,987 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by DoubleC
-
-
Well, Hmmm...
If you are planning to use the stool as a display then I think the background fabric is too busy. It takes away from the items you want to sell. In fact when I first saw it I didn't even see the pendants.
The denim in the basket is interesting but I think you would find the mare stare and eye of the horse thing would be better suited to that display. I really like the little bit of brown gingham.
Not sure what to think about the tin I can't see it all that well.
Yes, I use the material on the stool because they were old linen napkins I had with chickens etc on them but as soon as i saw them the way the camera saw them, I could tell the material was too busy. I should have reversed them, the lighter weather vane material on top and the other as a skirt. The tin is an old Rileys candy tin from England, nothing special, just has the lid (red) and could be closed up for travel. George liked it but we agreed too busy. He likes the chair idea too for just one place BUT thinks all I need is to take the things with me to begin with (I misunderstood when he said i should think about how to display them) and then if they take them, offer to do the display so I can be sure it's being seen. I have TWO rhinestone ribbon earrings in that stool display, bigger than the silver and black and even THERE got lost in the pictures. Yup, too busy, way too busy. If I do it as a display, I'll redo it with the weather vane on top, and the brighter one as a skirt. Thanks for looking Syl.
-
I hope he can too Chancey. I am sorry I did't answer sooner but I did n't get notified of this. There are so man talented leatherworkers here that you'll get some help. I'm just not one of them unfortunately. About the only thing I have going for me is I stay up late and can post at least, LOL.
I rush things too Chancey and maybe it's because we're interested in so many things, I DK. Because i enjoy every minute I have a piece of leather ion my hands, so I don't know why I get in a hurry and ruin it. Band aid is about right. Cheryl
-
Well this is what I came up with last night. Be brutal guys because the barn I'm going to is going to be. Thanks so much, Cheryl
-
I'm just learning about light and shadow so I might not be a big help Chancey, but I think if you had nailed the angle it would have been almost dead on. But with the pic of him with his chin tucked in is more chiseled that when yiu lifted it. But i think it's a great start on Johnny!!! Cheryl
-
I'm going to put the whole back part on the board and use the belt loops for hanging :-) I knew you guys would come through for me!
-
I walked past the store today. It was no longer in the window, but it may still be in the store. I was holding off till I payed off a credit card before buying more "toys."
Now that's always the dilemma isn't it. Strike while the iron's hot, or a penny saved, etc. I hope it's still there if you really want it Simon. Cheryl
-
OK, now that's way cool. My 'case' started out as denim pants cut off, a killer pair of wrangler carpenters, so denim it shall be!
-
I've seen oats here in Burlap a year ago. Maybe back east they don't do that anymore at all? Any yardage would work actually. I just like the burlap idea because it would give it a rustic chic look. Just plain white sheets cut to fit would work... you could even dye (stain) them with good strong coffee or tea to make them more antique looking. Even old doilies and doodahs can give it a vintage look. Maybe even old cut up faded jeans?? White glue would work as long as you can pin, clamp, or otherwise keep it held in place until the glue dries.
It doesn't need to be that kind of pins, you can just tie your things on with ribbons, or bits of leather thong. Or use small safety pins if you have them. Think woman think! lol
A business card might work temporarily. But eventually you'll want to make your logo prominent and permanent.
I like this kind of "marketing" I did it for years... window dressing, signage, all kinds of artsy fartsy display stuff.
I like your ideas....yeah burlap and sisal would be perfect, but I do have a ton of bailing twine here so it would work. Lots of old denim, every pair i own, LOL.
-
Oh, ok I got it (about the pins). Syl, feed hasn't come in burlap in 30 years, nor does flour come in cloth. I WISH. I used to collect those, but they're all in ohio. And cut out my logo? LOL, I haven't used any of that acrylic, it's still right here waiting to be sent to you. Staple a business card to it, maybe. And I knew what you meant about the backs, but I'm really starting to get embarrassed here, I can't afford the pins, much less anything else. and I'd like to not have to repeat that
-
Ok, what about this? Burlap attached to poster board with a picture frame type stand off the back. Sisal rope hot glued around the edge. U-shaped pins. Simple, light, and can be done on a shoe string. (spray the burlap with fabreze) Stencil your silhouette logo on the top in black paint.
Attaching your items with u-shaped pins should be easy and won't damage the items.
Sylvia, we obviously wear different size shoes
I know what you're saying IS inexpensive, probably 15 bucks to get it all and make up some, but I don't have it right now. I don't have a glue gun, burlap, poster board, sisal rope, or those back thingys, and I don't even know what U shaped pin is? And how would I stencil my silhouette?
Next month I could do that and have a ball. This month, a couple decorated 25 cent lampshades is looking very good.
-
I think they were asking $130.
I'll check it out and see if it's sturdy or wobbly.
Simon, if I had the money I'd grab it in a New York minute. Something that lasts in good shape 50-75 or more years will out last you plus the woods so mellow from being sat on. Cheryl
-
So you want to sell it on a chair??? How many chairs do you have? Or better yet do you only want one customer? Think big! Small creative display board that will fit on a counter. Leave it and go onto the next acoount.
UH, good point. Man do I need some sleep. OK, I only have so many drawers in rotted desks, and suitcases too. So now we're starting all over.
Calling all you artistic types to help with a display
What about lamp shades, wire round tomato stake thingys, uh, need some help here. I have some rice paper that I could attach to card stock and print off farm scenes, horses, etc and glue to lamp shades, and you can get those at every flea market, thrift store, and curb alert?
-
OK< how crazy is this?
I just went down and ,looked in the basement and found my old Victorian slipper chair I've been going to upholster forever, and just haven't gotten around to it. I was thinking I could paint it, I just had my apt. painted so I have red, yellow, green and blue. Well and tons of white. I thought I could put the pendants on the top and let the rhythm beads drape down over the sides. Everyone has room for a chair even if they don't have counter space, and who could resist this as a display?
God, took me forever to get the image, grrrrrr
Sorry, keep forgetting how to do this. Your advice is good and I'm way listening Jon. I'm afraid, like Syl that the drawer or the suitcase bottom may fall over and I'd get sued instead of sell anything, LOL. Cheryl
-
I think we may be making the first sales call next Monday, or anyway pretty soon. George suggested I come up with a way I want to display my stuff to prospective clients for two reasons. Well one it's much cooler than playing cards with them on the counter, LOL and also if I already have them displayed I have a better chance of KEEPING them displayed in a good area should they choose to take them on consignment or whatever, rather than have the store end up doing their own display say some where like the store room?
The only idea I've had so far is this antique French drop front desk I have has literally rotted in places, but the drawers are ok. UH, VERY naturally distressed but ok. I hung one sideways in my bathroom as a shelf. I thought of using one of the drawers with eye hooks screwed in the back to hang the pendants and rhythm beads on. Maybe replace the knobs with a leather handle on each side. And that is absolutely the ONLY idea my poor old, tired, almost celless brain has had. I don't want to display them in a cheesy plastic jewelry display case, etc. Anyone? Everyone? Thanks Cheryl.
OK< how crazy is this?
I just went down and ,looked in the basement and found my old Victorian slipper chair I've been going to upholster forever, and just haven't gotten around to it. I was thinking I could paint it, I just had my apt. painted so I have red, yellow, green and blue. Well and tons of white. I thought I could put the pendants on the top and let the rhythm beads drape down over the sides. Everyone has room for a chair even if they don't have counter space, and who could resist this as a display?
-
I think we may be making the first sales call next Monday, or anyway pretty soon. George suggested I come up with a way I want to display my stuff to prospective clients for two reasons. Well one it's much cooler than playing cards with them on the counter, LOL and also if I already have them displayed I have a better chance of KEEPING them displayed in a good area should they choose to take them on consignment or whatever, rather than have the store end up doing their own display say some where like the store room?
The only idea I've had so far is this antique French drop front desk I have has literally rotted in places, but the drawers are ok. UH, VERY naturally distressed but ok. I hung one sideways in my bathroom as a shelf. I thought of using one of the drawers with eye hooks screwed in the back to hang the pendants and rhythm beads on. Maybe replace the knobs with a leather handle on each side. And that is absolutely the ONLY idea my poor old, tired, almost celless brain has had. I don't want to display them in a cheesy plastic jewelry display case, etc. Anyone? Everyone? Thanks Cheryl.
-
Thanks,
Just wanted a plane pouch, but the leather looked like it needed a
native look.
Joe
Well you achieved that Joe. It's a neat piece. Cheryl
-
I made this one a while back and the bummer is...I forgot to take a picture of the backside *Grrr* It has some nice inlay there of phyton, well that's life.
It's all dyed with Angelus spirit dye and some white acrylic paint. Ontop I have used the old type of Tandys medium brown antiquing.
That is really nice....someday I hope :-) Cheryl
-
Cheryl managed to convince me that I should post this thing, so here goes nothing.
This is a pre-embossed Boy Scout buckle kit sold as a kit for around $8. (I think I got this one from Hobby Lobby). I bought this kit and finished it up in early summer of last year. As it was meant for an example for the Scouts for their leatherworking merit badge, and I already had a sewn buckle, I decided to lace this one. Lace is the imitation/bonded stuff, so not the best, plus it was my first lacing attempt and I made a mistake at the bottom.
You can see that there is just not a lot of physical depth to it (first picture). From the sky to the head, there is less relief than the thickness of a dime, and that is about as much depth as there is anywhere. But, I'm going to go ahead and explain how I colored it. I have no idea if this method is "right" or not, it was just me fooling around.
The first thing I did was dye the whole thing with Ecoflo saddle tan. If I had planned things out better, I would have resisted the area of the eagle's feathers and the clouds first, so those areas would have been paler to begin with. But I didn't, which means I did a lot of mixing of cova and dye throughout, and since I used thinned dyes and Covas, the colors seeped and blended together, which I think turned out rather well. Cova colors were mostly used for the white feathers, the highlighting on the sky, the outer portions of the bill, the clouds, and the eye, while dyes were used for everything else and to wash over the Covas to tint and blend.
I don't like coloring with Cova and acrylic so much that I lose the aspect of the leather--at this point, it's plastic looking, and I might have well just painted the whole thing with spray paint. So, I keep it thin enough that the leather shows through. Everywhere you see brown, that's the leather dyed saddle tan.
Dilute blues and purples were washed over the sky, the clouds, the trees, and the brown body feathers to recede them back. Cool shades were also washed into the back of the mouth and portions of the bill, within the gape, and face to move them back.
The eagle's brown feathers are left saddle tan, but thinned washes of Ecoflow java brown, which settled into the creases and "antiqued" the feathers, were used to bring out the detail.
The upper portions of the trees and the nearer portions of the head and bill were washed with yellows and oranges to bring the "nearer", as were the hump and tip of the bill, and the lower mandible. The crevices among the trees, the base of the clouds, and the sky nearest the ground was washed with a muddy purple to move them further back.
The bill was dyed yellow, while the gape and the nostril was dyed with tints of red, rose, and orange. Where the gape was tinted with cool colors, the reds and yellows were muted. The eye was dyed yellow.
The feathers were drybrushed with white in several layers so that the details of the feathers would show through, then washed with thinned dye in yellow and blue to help shade the head, and drybrushed once more with white. Some blue-grey dye mixed in with the Cova white was used to detail some of the edges and barbs of the feathers. Cova white and yellow were drybrushed onto the bill and the lower bill.
The trees were dyed green, and yellow dye was washed over the green to bring them slightly closer. The sky was highlighted with Cova blue, and white was also brushed onto the clouds.Yellow, black and white Cova were used to finish the eye, then the whole thing was sealed with two coats of Super Sheen before being laced together.
OMG you did it. I didn't mean for you to put up ALL your secrets you're sharing with me, LOL. I didn't know you put this up until now, but I already told you, your ability to 'move and make objects 3D' with color absolutely amazes me. And this buckle is gorgeous.
Cheryl -
I have been looking at how people are marketing via web pages and Facebook. I have been looking at woodworkers, knife makers, saddle makers, horse trainers, engravers, bit and spur makers and leather craftsmen/women. I am quite honestly amazed at how many people are out there trying to make money in these areas and yet they don't share the photos of the their work because they keep their information private.
There are a number of people on this forum and several other forums that I am on where I know that these individuals sell products and yet when you go to their Facebook page they do not share information publicly. Likewise many of them have web pages as well and don't place that in their Info section.
I have some questions for those who are selling products and are not sharing information on Facebook. How are people going to see your wares if you are unwilling to share even photos of your work? Why not allow people to see your work without asking to be a friend. With those who have web sites and don't list them on their info page, don't you think that this could be a possible missed opportunity in your marketing strategy? I would think that both of these would be missed marketing opportunities no matter how little they are.
Just some things to think on as I noticed many did not share information publicly even though they are selling products.
What do others think?
Regards,
Ben
Hi Ben. I have a site and when I first started it, I had all my info on it, as far as address, etc. I made websites way 'back in the day' for people and that was the way I was taught. However, MANY, MANY people on this forum suggested I take my address off. As far as pictures, I have every picture I can possibly squeeze on my site LOL. HOWEVER, I had a business partner for about 12 minutes and she saw these saddle horn crosses on facebook selling like hotcakes, and contacted me and wanted me to whip up a few 1000 while the getting was good. Now those are common enough, but why she wanted me to do them was they were two part crosses and the underneath was tooled and the top wasn't and she knew I had some old saddle leather I could cut them from for the tooled part, slap paint on them and be good to go. I wasn't going to steal the man's design, I just didn't think it was right. I may make some up later from this leather, just a one piece design, and put them on my site. When I have time. But I can understand people being hesitant about both areas. Cheryl
-
Finished these up yesterday. The tobacco pouch was a reworked check book cover
that i blotched. Added more leather to bottom to make longer and ripped
out liner from an old pouch..
Oh the staghorn is for the girls.
Joe
What a nice tobacco pouch, and what a great idea adding more leather. I miss seeing one of your pipes on it though. Really nice Joe. Cheryl
-
Here is my knot. It was still too dark from being oiled to take a picture of this morning. Knot is around 4" in diameter, strands are about 1/4 inch. Tools were a regular Tandy swivel knife, A beveler (modern Tandy-purchased Craftool #B801) and a tiny ball point stylus. I am never doing this again unless I use a filigree blade. The leather was just a bit of scarred shoulder, so it's not pretty, but I did case it properly, which helped. It might also be prettier if I used an undercut beveler for the crossings, a series of checkered background tools, and better leather, but all in all, I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.
I haven't been following this thread because I don't know how to do a Celtic knot and don't feel like I have time to learn right now. I hear you say every thing that's wrong, but I think it's beautiful WinterBear, and probably just another day in your multi and I DO mean multi-talented life. c
-
I was thinking something more like when you mold your eyes... on the back fill the eyeball part with the clay, smooth it off and it would be assured that it will never get crushed. Or like that one member here that has the awesome buffalo face picture that is 3D for an avatar
If you try the "decopage" stick some glad wrap over the tray first....
oh I will, I used to make Papier Mache' trays. It's a lot of fun. I have a basket, not very big or deep that's woven 'something, LOL. I was going to try doing it on the BACK so the woven design would show on the tray insides. In my spare time, LOL
-
Unless it's just too small to use for anything... I hate the thought of my practice and pieces going into the garbage. So I've come up with a couple ideas.
1. If your practice piece has some half way decent art on it and you can cut it out into a decent shape. Impregnate the back of the piece with essential oil and poke a hole... use it as a car air freshener. (or include this in the package with your custom order)
2. If the practice piece is large enough make it into a hair barrette.
3. I skive while my leather is wet... these long strips while still wet can be formed into "ribbon roses"
4. Take skive shavings and chop them up fine with some modge podge and use it like leather clay. ???
5. Fix a friend's guitar case handle with some decent leather strips. Make two rings and a long piece for the handle chicago screws to tie it all together.
So what do you do with your scrap and practice pieces?
You know me Syl, I won't throw anything away. You remember the full length pic I did of sienna that was wonky? I have it on a clip board and use it as a mouse pad where I plugged in a 'real' mouse to my laptop.
I love the mod podge idea.....i wonder if you you mixed those all up and while it was still wet could 'decopage' a tray or something like that you'd usually wet mold? Gonna have to try it! c
-
I like it, how many eyes will it hold?
The whole bag or the molded box?
Seriously, the molded box is 2 & 1/2 " times 8" x 6" and the yes are 2" x what? 1/16th" So busily using my calculator that comes out to, a big whole bunch!!!!I'm glad you like it Kev, I know you had your doubts once or twice (and I had them way more but just didn't say anything :-) c
Calling All Your Artistic Types
in How Do I Do That?
Posted · Report reply
I DON'T have a button collection (you're right, I did, you know I collect every thing, LOL). I sold two lbs of buttons when I sold all my jewelry making supplies. the whole thing I sold was about 10 lbs and I think I got maybe $25.00 for it. Dumbest, well in the 10 ten, thing I ever did. All I have now are elephant buttons (collect elephants too LOL) and anchor buttons (that's too long a story for this early, LOL) but if I can find them they would work but they're pretty small. But the eyes are light. Not much of a choice of colors though.