BenB

It pains me to post this, but here are Paul's last words for the leather world: “I thank everybody I’ve met through these many years for their loyalty. It has been an honor to have met, taught and shared this craft with so many wonderful and creative people. My darling Sue is going to continue on with the feather line and keep the web site going. I hope my knowledge will have ongoing benefit to those who desire to learn our wonderful art and craft.” More from his wife, Karen, is at his website www.paintingcow.com.

Jeffrey - thank you for spreading the word and for the sentiments. Just wanted to confirm that Paul did pass away Friday evening 2/24/2012. I'll be updating his website in the next few days to post some final words that Paul wanted to share with the leather community. If anyone has parting thoughts, words of appreciation, or some good stories to share, please post them here.

That's gonna be sweet when it gets out on the road! What's carved behind the bird on the left? A straight edge razor?

Agree on King X's advice to browse. I probably spend about 95% of my time on this forum just reading (and admiring some of the amazing work here!).

Welcome aboard!

Looks nice so far. Are you planning on any type of comfortable lining? What breed of dog?

Welcome! Glad you posted the actual knife picture - I was intrigued.

I like the design of the purse - really classy. Is it original?

I use BlueHost for my wife's site (www.pearlsportraits.com). I found it to be the best value for my purposes (small site with a low amount of traffic). I haven't had to contact customer service. Everything works quickly and properly and was very easy to set up. I think within 24 hours of purchasing the hosting we had an operable website. Let me know if you need any help with Concrete 5... I've got a few months of experience with this platform (and years with other CMS's) and would be glad to answer any quick questions that I can.

Every day I read posts here, I learn about something new to do with leather! This one takes the cake, so far.

That's the very first thing I noticed about your design. I like that feature! Looks like this Zippo pouch is very functional.

Adorable - I think you captured the dog's likeness and expression very well. Looks like the right jowl needs droop downward a little further, though.

I really like the camera cases. They look solid and protective. My wife dabbles in photography.... maybe one day I'll surprise her . With cases that nice, though, I might have to upgrade her camera first!

Here are my recommendations for a home storage and backup system. Do not use a regular old internal hard drive for your home computer. Use a small (40-80GB, 160GB if your'e a digital workhorse) solid state drive (SSD). It will make your computer amazingly fast. Store only files on this drive that you will use daily (e.g. your operating system, primary programs, emails, projects currently being worked on, etc...). Move the rest of the files to your primary external hard drive. These SSD's are becoming cheaper by the minute and it's becoming easier to find them pre-installed in new computers. This advice is a little ahead of its time, but it will become increasingly important in 2012 and beyond. Keep this in mind next time you buy a new computer. Use not one, but TWO external hard drives (EHD). Hard drives fail, frequently. They're also exceptionally cheap. But the data stored on them is not. The first EHD can be any ol' cheapy. It will sit next to your computer (or under or behind, wherever) and will never move. I recommend 750GB to 1TB unless you have a ton of video, in which case 1.5TB to 2TB would be more suitable. Speed of the hard drive doesn't matter much since the USB connection isn't fast to begin with. The second EHD must be heavy-duty, but small and made to travel. This is the one you're going to take with you. And yes, sooner or later, you'll want to take it with you. You could use a flash drive for this purpose - they're small and handy but easy to lose and more expensive per GB. Use Window's backup programs to backup all your important files (great list Johanna) to EHD #2 (your travel EHD). Use a free program (I like SynchBack) to backup the entirety of EHD#2 (travel) to EHD#1 (stationary) on a regular basis - at least weekly but preferably daily. VERY IMPORTANT: OFF-SITE STORAGE. The further away, the better. Once every three-to-six months, use your DVD burner to write DVD's from one of your EHD's to disk. Take the backup DVD's and store them at Uncle Joe's or your mother's house or in a safety deposit box, if that's your cup of tea. Doesn't matter where, just get it out of your house! If there is a disaster at your house, your computer could be inoperable and EHD#1 and EHD#2 will likely be fried as well. Where's your data now? My wife has trusted her life's work to this system. She has terabytes of photography, drawings (scanned), paintings (scanned), and videos protected in this manner. All of our encrypted financial documents are also managed by the same system. After it's setup, it's almost automatic. There would have to be an EMP attack or solar flare to wipe out our data. Any responsible corporation has a similar strategy, and if you have any significant digital assets - so should you. This entire setup (minus the SSD which is a "bonus", not a necessity) can be implemented for about $150-$250 and about 2-4 hours of your time. Is your data worth that investment? Some people recommend online backups. I do not. Unequivocally, I don't trust them. I don't trust the transmission of my data to an offsite location, or that the vendor has appropriate redundancy and security, or that the employees of the vendor won't be taking a sneak peak at my data. Thumbs down to "the cloud" for personal backup purposes. On a related note, a quick side story. Note to some people out there who think like my dear father in law mechanic: unlike some other costly products, you should almost never pay someone to "upgrade" or "restore" your computer if it involves hardware. If you have the skill, it's probably not a bad idea to DIY re-install the operating system or install extra memory in certain situations. But most of the time - Buy a new one for about $500. This has been the correct answer for 90% of the cases I have seen where someone unfamiliar with computers is trying to breathe new life into an old PC. They call me and say things are slow, and I find out they're running a 1998 Gateway that has been through three hard drives, is maxed out on 2GB of RAM (they were charged $200 to install the extra 1GB), and Uncle Joe recommended replacing the mother board. No - buy a new computer.

Thanks for the welcome! Yep, that's Paul, my mentor. His illness prevents him from teaching me much beyond how to run his business, but having access to his teaching materials is very helpful. I haven't even attempted a "brand new" piece of work or even followed one of his step-by-step instructions yet. Aside from my day job and helping Paul with technical stuff, my focus has been on cutting out and skiving pre-stamped patterns that my wife then paints. One of these days, I'll find time to move on to something more creative.

Greetings, everyone. I'm very new to the leather world but am trying to learn as fast as I can. To be honest, leather wasn't on my mind much until recently, and now a seemingly random string of events has me thinking about leather most of the day. Long story short: my wife left her day job; I kept mine and set out to help run her art business in the evenings and on weekends. She was asked to help produce a video for a local artist. This same artist needed a little help with his computer and website. So my wife and I used our experience in these areas to complement the skills of Paul and Karen Burnett. Now we're learning to carve, skive, stamp, and paint leather. I must say that I have a whole new perspective of what can be done with leather. The work I’ve seen in the past few months, both in person and on these forums, has amazed me. Despite my lifelong lack of any artistic skill, I hope to one day produce my own leather work as a hobby, but my current focus is to help run a couple different businesses. Obviously, one key part of this is learning the craft, and that’s why I’m here. I’ve been lurking at the forums for a while and decided it was time to join up and start contributing. This is a big and vibrant community that has already taught me so much. I look forward to learning more!

I agree that "The E-Myth" is a must-read for anyone wanting to run a business to support themselves, regardless of the trade. The information in this thread has been enlightening. Thank you to all the contributors.

Thanks for the welcome. Paul and Karen are still forging ahead and creating new work. We're glad to have produced the two videos - they certainly helped me learn a lot - but producing the full-length videos is becoming a little difficult. There could still be some more in the works, but at a smaller scale.

Hello everyone - I'm a little new here, but I come with some history. I'm Ben, and I've been lurking around these forums for a few months while helping Paul and Karen Burnett with their business. I'm not much of an artist, but I've learned a lot about leather working recently and hope to tap into some of the knowledge here as my repertoire expands. Anyway, you'll get to know me soon in other forums. I'll be sure to put up a proper introduction. The point of this post is to let everyone know that Paul has contributed quite a bit of free and paid material to this website and elsewhere on the web, but unfortunately his ability to create and distribute new material is fading away. His latest, and perhaps last, video is available in DVD form on his website at www.paintingcow.com. This instructional material is a follow-up to his previous DVD, "Carving the Rocky Mountain Big Horn Ram". In this new video, Paul demonstrates his philosophies and techniques for painting a carved leather surface. Using the majestic Rocky Mountain Big Horn Ram for this virtual class, Paul shows you -- stroke by stroke -- how to bring a leather painting to life. Check out Painting the Rocky Mountain Big Horn Ram at Paul's website, and while you're there - make sure to sign up for the free lessons.