NicoleAlaine

I'm looking to make some dog collars with a fat center and narrow ends, like in this picture. I am wondering how to get the end narrowed. I cut my own straps from full hides using the Tandy Strap Cutter (http://www.tandyleat...er-3080-00.aspx). I know there must be a reasonably easy way to do it since it is so commonly done. Any help would be appreciated!

You were all right, I went to Oregon Leather last weekend and got a side of Hermann Oak 9/10 and it is great! It is darker than the very pale stuff I had before but it still took the colors really well. Thanks for all the tips!

Thanks everyone, it sounds like I should be able to find something at least somewhat lighter. Let the search commence! I would love to try some of the Hermann Oak, I might have to buy my next hide at Springfield. All the info you gave me reminded me how much I still have to learn. I am such a newb!

Thanks Aaron, I have never been to Oregon Leather and was actually planning to visit there tomorrow in hopes of finding better quality leather (it's closer to me too!). I will be curious to see what they have. I will also try to make the meeting on the 7th. It would be great to meet some other makers in the area!

I have been buying my leather exclusively from Tandy and have found that it is really easy to find nice white hides in very light cuts (2-3oz) but in the thicker cuts I use for dog collars (9-10oz) the leather is always quite dark tan. Is this normal for all suppliers or is it just a Tandy thing? I just finally got my Springfield Leather catalog (AWESOME!) and was thinking about getting a hide from them but was hoping for some input on this before I order. I am in Portland, Oregon so I only have a few local suppliers I can go to and actually see the hide. Is this something others have experienced? I am able to get really nice light pastel-ey colors on my lighter leather but those colors are impossible to get on my thicker leathers. It is bumming me out! Thoughts?

That is so funny TomG! I'll bet they seal tight! Thanks for all your responses. I will probably get some plastic bottles off of ebay. It sounds like everyone has a personal preference. I would love to find something with measurements on the side, but it looks like I will have to make do with clear plastic so I can at least mark the sides myself for measuring. I am thinking of getting some of these since I prefer the wide mouth: http://tinyurl.com/m7336bk Hopefully they seal nice and tight.

I have been using baby food jars for storing batches of mixed dyes but the lids do not tighten well and I have evaporation and storage issues. I usually only mix small batches but if I had a more reliable bottle I might mix more. How do you store your dyes?

If it is a tooled/stamped image you can also antique it. The color will stay in the impressions but be wiped away from the smooth part of the leather. Welcome to the hobby and forum

I also use veg tan for leashes but make sure that it is thick enough not to stretch. Any oil tanned leather is going to be more waterproof than veg tanned, but since I want to color my leashes I just make sure they are well waterproofed. I have not had any trouble with mine so far

I love your wife's cake toppers, they are super creative and cute. I wish you the best with the iWeb, I had never heard of it until your post. I hope you are able to still use it after they stop supporting it, at least long enough to learn a new system. I am using Wordpress with Woocommerce for my site. The basic Wordpress site does blogs and general pages, and the Woocommerce allows you to add products and a shopping cart linked to Paypal. It has worked pretty well for me so far, but I may want to change later. My only beef with Wordpress is that it is not intended for ecommerce without added plugins, so sometimes all the different pieces don't interact well, especially around big Wordpress updates. But so far I have been really happy with it and it is totally free. You also don't need any special knowledge which is nice.

Did you do your website yourself or hire someone? I can see that you didn't use Wordpress, etc. and that you have at least some reference to W3Schools in your code. That is where I learned all of my coding, so I am somewhat familiar with their tools. Here is one tutorial that might be helpful, thought I have never done pop-ups so I don't know if there are any other steps involved. Since iWeb is proprietary it may be you have to be using Apple software? http://iwebunlimited.com/iweb-tips/iweb-tip-6-pop-up-windows-in-iweb/

Hmm, I might have to invest in a white hide. It looks really slick. I have about 12 different colors I offer normally but I am really jonesing for white.

It looks great on my screen now, and I just looked at it on my other computer with a regular sized screen as well. Both screens allow me to see your lovely satchels completely (ditto on your product pages, I can see the first few rows on product completely). Now it doesn't take any work (scrolling) to see what you have to offer. Shoppers can be very lazy and bounce rates on websites are really high, so the more you can suck them in right away the better! Keep it up!

Hope I could help Your site is really nice looking! I have been trying to personalize mine more, but so far it is still pretty simple, almost sterile.

Hi Adam, you know that is a great question. I forgot that I have a freak monitor. It is actually a 32" TV set to 1360 X 768. That may be why I see so little of the site.

Love the shape, and the vintage stones are a great idea! What do you color with? I have been trying to figure how to do a good white.

Love the double buckle, very classic looking and I'm sure it's super practical!

I agree with Cyberthrasher, definitely payment up front, and definitely make sure you can handle the workload. I have done some wholesale and been really happy with it. I still make sure that I price my products so that I can wholesale them someday if I decide to do so again. Right now I have limited time and so restricting myself to making full retail and selling fewer things makes sense for me, but once I am ready to really grow my business it will probably be wholesale that will allow me to do that. The exposure is great! I always used a business card for a tag (attached with string) so they could put the price tag on it. That way the customer knows I have a website, blog, etc that they can buy directly from (and you don't have to share profit with a wholesaler). Just make sure if you do this that you are charging the same online as your buyer is selling for in store (or on their own site). Undercutting your wholesalers won't make you any friends Of course if your buyer is selling online they might not want to include a business card of yours, so a makers mark would probably be a good investment. Good luck!

Your site looks great, love the themes and the graphics are great. The only thing that got me right off the bat (but it is fairly common so may just be a personal preference thing) is that when the page loads I see: Header with business name Tag line Menue Business name again The top 1/6th of a beautiful pair of satchels No matter what page I land on first, I can't see any whole products, and that visual of what you actually have to offer is what always catches my eye first. Would it be possible to make your header/page title smaller to allow more of the images to load higher up? Best of luck with your new site!

Hi there, I have never used the Shopify software, so I don't know how mold-able it is, but I do have a few suggestions. I was a bit confused by the how to drop down menu. I guess I just thought it seemed unnecessary. I think once you get into the order page it is pretty straightforward that you just have to select your options from the drop-down menus. I do think that the info in the how to is valuable, such as what width to pick for your dog, what kind of studs you use, etc. Maybe the reason it confused me was that since it is the first drop-down on the left I thought I needed to go in there to pick a collar and didn't figure out for a few minutes to go to Store. Maybe you could put store on the left and how to on the right so people who don't want the extra info can more easily bypass it. I would also consider (if you can) changing the drop down to say Shop instead of Store. That way it can be seen as both noun and verb (call to action) as in "this is my shop" and "click here to shop". I guess I always think of it as a verb when I see it so the word store threw me off at first. Also, your header looks great but may be a bit large. I actually have to scroll down to be able to see the whole first row of collars, so it is a bit distracting (could just be because I have a large screen). I also like to see more personal info about the maker on about pages. Who are you, why did you get into the biz, where do you live, do you have dogs, etc. I find getting a bit personal helps customers to feel like they know you and then they feel like they want to support you. Also having things in common with someone helps customers feel special ("I have a pug too!" or "Hey, I know someone who lives in Seattle, I should tell them about this site.") Just my preference, but I know I like to feel like I have a bit of a relationship with the person who I am buying from and it makes me feel more invested in supporting their business. I would maybe say "large collars" and "small collars" on the store menu since just "collars" seems like it should be the entire inventory. Also I didn't see the point of the quick shop feature since it doesn't give any options. Does it just add to the cart with the options in the picture? I would probably drop that feature if it was me (if possible). Sorry if I am super opinionated I have been working on my own site too (I also make dog collars). Any input you had on mine would be super appreciated too! (www.cascadeleatherworks.com). I use Wordpress with the Woocommerce e-commerce plugin to make selling on site possible. I have been pretty happy with it, but since it was not originally made to do e-commerce there are a lot of things that feel like a workaround. Great luck with your site! I have found that mine is just getting rolling really slowly, and I have a few more orders every month. Oh, and the other thing that you can do to help your sales is find out how Shopify handles SEO (keywords, optimizing for google searches, etc.) and make sure you have all the SEO info you can entered. When I did that I saw an increase in sales right away. I like your collars by the way. Very colorful, and I love all the options!

I am a stay at home mom with a very small leather business I have been nursing along for about 3 years. First quarter 2013 I finally paid myself my first salary, and it was not a big one, but it was a definite milestone. I have done some local wholesale but most of my business has come from an Etsy store. I have now put together my own e-commerce site to give me a venue that doesn't depend on anyone else's policies, etc but have only had a dozen or so sales on that site so far. I started out as a specialty store selling pet collars, but am beginning to branch out to other markets very slowly as I can. I make mostly the same thing over and over to specific measurments and don't build until ordered. I am finding that the more different types of products I have available the better my sales are becoming, but that may be only because leather pet collars are a pretty saturated market already. I would imagine there are some niche markets that a person would be able to specialize in and make a good amount. My goal is to slowly build my catalog and my business, maybe branching out into wholesale at some point. I am hoping that by the time the kids are older and I would normally be thinking about going back to work I will have nice established business and can just bump up the number of hours I am working (thought they will probably build by themselves as I add more products to my catalog). I have been happy with Etsy so far, and consider it a great starting point for building my business since I can get full retail price and have a built in audience so I don't have to do as much self-promotion. As far as competition with mass produced crap, I would have to agree with everyone else who has said you just have to work hard to produce a great product and it will speak for itself. Even among the Walmart generation (which I am on the cusp of being a part of) there are MANY who will see the value of buying something once and knowing it will be a great product as opposed to buying one $16 wallet a year for life. I also think that as the young generation sees how much money they are throwing away on cheap crap they will wise up and start to look for better products. Hope my little story can give someone something to think about. I know this thread has been really interesting for me as a newcomer to the leather business. I have so much to learn still!

You could probably use the fiberglass to make a lined collar with something like 2/3 (not sure what thickness you would usually use since I have not done lined collars) on the back and a tooled front that would be less bulky than a normal lined collar. Lightingale, I wanted to tell you also that I have been a fan of your collars for a long time. They are really beautiful! Your artistic work is really an inspiration to me!

That's really funny, I hadn't noticed the brand on it. Now that I look closer on it, the dark collar actually does look stretched thinner on the bulk of the collar below the stitching. Good to know I didn't totally drop the ball! Oh well, I refunded her $ for good PR and let it go at that. Glad it prompted me to do the research though, it's nice to know that veg tan is just like that.

Thanks so much for all the input everyone! I have been really happy after the switch to 9/10, and I am hoping to get a machine at some point so that I can do double layers for tougher collars but I simply don't have the time for hand stitching right now (running a business, chasing a toddler, expecting a second baby soon). I do love the idea of sending out a small info sheet with every collar, and will probably do that. Even with the info on my site I doubt a lot of people go looking for it. I have also been planning on adding some oil tanned collars as soon as I have the chance, but had not thought to suggest those for rough use. I will definitely do that now.

Hi all, I have been coming here for help for a while now but this is my first post. I know you will all be able to help. I have a business selling leather dog collars, and I recently got some startling feedback from a customer. It seems that she bought one of my collars and after about a month of use it was very badly stretched, discolored and brittle. She apparently has a very active dog and it gets "heavy outdoor use" including being worn while swimming sometimes (not sure how often) and bathing. She did oil it several times to keep it conditioned, but still had very poor results with it. You can see from the before (not the exact collar) and after pics what it looked like. The black collar in the after pic is not one I made, only the undyed one. Here is some info about the construction of the collar: Leather is 6/7oz (I have since switched to 9/10oz) double shoulder from Tandy 1" wide with beveled edges No dye used, finished with 3 coats of Angelus Acrylic Finisher Good coating of Neetsfoot oil applied after finisher I am basically wondering what I can do differently (other than increasing thickness of leather since I already have done that) to make my collars last better. I have been in business for 4 years and have never had feedback of this nature before, so I don't know if it was the use of the collar or the production that was the problem. I have noticed that my undyed collars often feel more pliable than the dyed ones and have been wondering if the dye itself perhaps has some preservative qualities. Should I be using a neutral leather dye on collars that are not to be colored? Any info or tips you all could give would be appreciated.