tashabear

Wow, Tina, that's GORGEOUS! Thank you so much for sharing it!

Welcome from one of your neighbors to the North! I'm from the Barony of Carolingia, in the East. :-D (Don't let the escarbuncle in the avatar fool you...)

Ooh. Love the bags! Is there a drawstring under the flap?

Me too! Though I did learn to keep Krazy Glue off of Swarovski pearls. Makes them not-shiny.

I had fun with this, and I learned a lot, but I admit I'm looking forward to working on something bigger. Except I'm thinking of making some order medallions... I'm such a glutton for punishment.

I made this coronet for a friend's husband, who is a baron in the SCA. His arms have a Cross of Toulouse (Also known as an Occitan cross) on them, and so he chose to pull that out and use just that, in gold on black. I used quilting template plastic to make the template for the curves. Previously, I've had good results with gold acrylic paint on leather. My usual method had been paint, resist, then dye, but on my test piece it smeared terribly. So I dyed it, then painted over the dye with Liquid Leaf. Then finishing proved problematic, when the Super Shene pooled and made ugly splotches. So I buffed those off and went with Leather Sheen, which is a lovely finish. Inserting the pearls was entertaining. The headpins I bought bend when you look at them -- you don't even have to look at them funny. So instead of pushing them in, I had to bore a hole with my Dremel, cut the pins to length, and glue them in with Krazy Glue. They look lovely, don't they?

That's the stuff. It's not that big a deal; there are only six pearls going on the points of this coronet. I'm actually done with it now, but it was so nerve-wracking drilling the holes for the pins that I'm wiped out. There will be pictures later.

The Krazy Glue I have has a brush applicator, so it's really not an issue.

Next time. I have the Krazy Glue in hand; I'd have to go out and find the stuff you're recommending.

Ever tried gluing French clips to the back instead of holes and sticks? I've had long hair for ages, and it's thick and heavy. The barrettes with the sticks will only stay in if I'm putting my hair up, and I rarely do that unless I'm in uniform, in which case a barrette with a stick wouldn't be appropriate anyhow. The ones with the French clips are *much* more versatile, IMO.

Yeah, the pin pulled right out, so I'm going to go with the Krazy Glue. Thanks, though!

How long does this stuff take to cure? Also, I'm using it to mount beads on pins into the edge of a strap. I want to bore holes in the strap, but the hole is larger than the pin (I've done a test piece, but while I'm waiting for it to set I thought I'd ask). Will the Leather Weld adhere to the pin, or should I use Krazy Glue?

You underestimate my ability to overcomplicate my own life. ;-)

It's like that everywhere, true, but Etsy seems to be a hotspot for that. Leatherwork is just the latest in a long line of saleable crafts I've learned, but the first I've ever tried to sell, so I'm still learning what my work is worth in this arena. I know what my work is worth in knitting and spinning, and truthfully, I don't think there are too many people who can afford me. I wouldn't charge for drying time, because I'm not doing anything to make the project progress; I'm just letting it sit. I can use the time that project is sitting to work on something else. Basically what you can do, if you want to get anal about it, is create line items for each activity, and then dole out the time you spend working to the line items in no less than 15 minute increments. (This is what we did at a construction company I worked for, and sometimes the guys would get passive aggressive with me and do their time cards in 5 minute increments. They didn't get paid on time when they pulled that shit.) Otherwise, I would recommend a stopwatch and a slip of paper if you're concerned but not crazy, or just your best guess if you're laissez faire about it. There are ways I might charge for artwork, but as I'm just getting started and will likely rely heavily on Dover Books, I don't need to develop those yet. I also need to keep myself from getting caught up in minutiae, because I could seriously spend all my time organizing and categorizing stuff and not working.

Don't go by prices on Etsy. You're finding a perfect storm of people who have an overinflated sense of their own skill combined with people who don't know what the hell they're looking at. Do a search for "handspun yarn" and see what 25 yards of unusable "art yarn" goes for. It's enough to make me want to pull out my spinning wheel, get a couple pounds of handpainted roving, spin it as badly as I can, and sell it for $75/50 yards -- I could probably pay the mortgage. Right now I'm covering my materials and paying myself ~$10-12 an hour. I'm just starting out, though, so those rates will go up as I gain experience. I call them my "Guinea Pig" rates.

Laughing? Hell, no! That's beautiful... you know, in a totally butch, badass kind of way. What tool did you use fo the outside background?

So pretty! What play is she in?

Can I make just one little suggestion about the website? Please, pleasepleaseplease... stop the blinking! It makes it really hard to read -- off-puttingly difficult. Honestly, if I didn't know there was good information there, I'd click away as soon as I saw something blink, as it gives me headaches. I realize that you're getting a ton of hits, but do you have metrics showing how long they stay? I hate to sound critical, so please, take this suggestion in the spirit in which it's meant -- I want you to have an attractive and usable site. All that being said, I'm subscribing to the newsletter -- it has sone great info! Thanks!

I'm the next best thing to done with this project, which is a baronial coronet from someone in the SCA. I love how it's turned out, but the Super Shene looks awful on it, and when I buff it, the Liquid Leaf I used for the gold cross and edging rubs off. I want to seal the entire thing to make it as water-resistant as possible, while still remaining fairly flexible. A spray finish is not out of the question, as long as it has the above characteristics. Here's a picture for reference: There are 6 points, each will be tipped with a pearl, and then it will be sewn together.

That's what I did. I need to remember to let it oxidize and not to panic if it looks purple under the fluorescents -- it'll darken even more as it dries, and fluorescent light LIES -- it looks a lot better in natural light than it does fluorescent.

Wow. I mean, really... just... guh. Awesome. (we need a "not worthy" emoticon.)

Got a 403 Forbidden error.

It's Chelmsford, though; not Charlton, for which I am infintely grateful, because Charlton is a haul from Lawrence!

Those are ghillie brogues -- IIRC, more Irish than Norse, but since Dublin was settled by the Norse... well, you do the math. I've tried on similar shoes, and didn't care for them, but other people love them dearly. I'll stick with my Jorvik boots.

That's what Froghunter told me. Might go that route -- I'll have to do a test piece.