Johanna

I got barrys, gator, studioN, docado, big o, duke and a couple more of you that sent PMs. My standard disclaimer: I turned the adult section on for you. If you don't see the NSFW section by the Marketplace while logged in, try logging out, then in again. Fair warning- jokes are really baaaad. Johanna Let me know if anyone else wants in the NSFW area of the board. It's private- you must be logged in to see it, and you must click on it to open it. If you look at the board at work, just stay out of that room until you get home. To Google and the outside world, it doesn't exist, so your boss can't see it unless YOU click on it. Johanna Drac brought many of our adult section members to the board, and he was a natural ambassador there. He also submitted a very good tutorial for making floggers that we reworded and pinned in braiding so everyone could see it. I am going to miss Drac.

Yes, they ship out of the country. You may want to email or call for an exact quote. They can't figure the charge until the weigh your package and know where it's going. Johanna

You are wetting the leather when shaping it, right?

The polka dot interior reminded me of the Gateway boxes computers come in. But yes, another example of the spin used to fool the public into thinking they are getting "value". Cloth is cheaper than leather. Like I said, i could justify spending 3 or 4 times that much if, for example, Kevin King made it or Bob Park carved it, but that kind of money for imported not-very-well-made junk- HA! They will never get it out of me. I wouldn't pay $20 for that cover and I don't care whose logo it was. Inferior workmanship and materials is still junk no matter what the tag reads or what it costs. But they are selling them- that's what we have to learn from. Why are those junky covers selling so well? Is it the designer tag? Is it because Amazon promotes them? Is it because they have $3 invested in each unit and are laughing all the way to the bank? If they sold them for $10 each, I wouldn't have started this thread. But they are getting $125 each! How can we, the custom leatherworkers, convince the people wealthy enough to buy things like Kindle Covers to buy from us? The price of the final product is actually not a factor. We could build a smilar case for less that $10 + whatever time spent customizing it. Kate Spade has maybe invested $3 per unit? Sound about right? So how do we get the business? Most of us can build a better case than that and maybe even afford to compete in price, so why aren't our phones ringing instead of Amazon's? Something to think about today. And we can be glad we'll never pay $50 for an eyeglass case cover made out of plastic, too! I also saw an ugly partly-leather purse with a poor design and bad hardware on sale at Penney's this weekend for "only" $150. It's made so badly I wouldn't buy it for Janie at Wally World for $10, My local Penneys will sell dozens of these purses. How can we get the "prestige" of the designer labels? We have quality and customization down pat, but how do we educate the customer that we have good prices and better quality than the factories overseas, and to call us first? Should we all put "Made in America" in our advertising campaigns? What can the custom leather industry do to educate the public and get a share of the dollars currently being spent on mass produced imported stuff? Anyone have any ideas? Johanna