Made a Petal Lifter, Carved a Leaf!

[YinTx]

This is my third oak leaf effort, this time I decided to make a couple of petal lifters from some freebie screwdrivers using an old 25 cent file I bought at a yard sale.

Lesson from Ed LaBarre on making oak leaves applied, tell me what you all think!  Still wet in the photo, but excited the tools seemed to do their job...  Also, used my new Robert Beard basket weave stamp, I think it does pretty good...

YinTx

[JD62]

Wow you keep improving like that and you'll command the real big bucks! They are nice tools too.

[Sompla]

That is wonderful! Lots of neat details in the leaves

[Bodean]

Nice job.

[Rohn]

Absolutely beautiful. Great work.

[spacedog]

Excellent results! Really nice tooling.

[alpha2]

It looks like with a slight breeze, it'll blow right off the project! Well done. That basket-weave stamp is really doing the job, too.

Silly me, I bought my lifters...and I've got plenty of old useless screwdrivers around to make one out of. 

(Unrelated: I don't know why I throw away other stuff that wears out and is unusable, but I swear I have every screwdriver I've ever owned).

[Bob Blea]

Both the leaves and the basket stamp look great.  You've got really nice dimension on the leaves.

[YinTx]

Wow, came home today to all these great comments!  Thank you all for that!  It is encouraging. The tools were just a proof of concept, and I think they worked ok, so I'll clean them up some, maybe rework the contour a little bit, and give it another go on another practice piece.

Alpha, I too have a ton of screwdrivers, they never die, I don't sell them, never threw one away....  So these finally got repurposed.

JD162, I sold a checkbook wallet for $125.. is that big bucks?  I'm never sure what to charge for my work... try to get my $$ out of it in terms of leather, thread, dye, etc., but this craft is not a speedy one, so I never really get the $/hour out of it.  Bring prices up too much, no one is willing to spend on it... leave it too low, don't make enough to make it worth while.  Figure one day I'll determine the fine balance!

Bob, I can't take credit for the pattern, it was from the Lone Star Leathercrafter's Pattern Pack, and a drawing of corner designs by George Hurst.  But I can take credit for carving and tooling it!  Which reminds me, I forgot to stamp initials in there... gotta do that!

NOW, if I could only figure out how to correctly apply resist and antique without ruining my pieces, I'd be in good shape.  About 75% of the items I have tried to antique I have ruined and tossed into the bin.  I think I've followed every suggestion I could find on this forum, manufacturer's directions, Youtube hints, even got to attend a class on antiquing at the IFOLG show.  Tried them here, fail.  So frustrating.  The only way I've been able to get an even color is just mix antique with Tan Kote, smear it on with no resist, and wipe it off.  Which gives no variations or contrasts.  I'm tired of wrecking my tooling, and don't want to repeat the same results on this piece.   Resists I have used are:  Neat lac, Tan Kote, Resolene, Angelus Acrylic finisher, and Eco Flow Professional Matte finish.  I've tried em thick, thin, two coats, one coat, painted on... all to no avail.  Anyone have a foolproof method they care to share?

YinTx

[JD62]

YinTx, 

I feel your pain, I go thru the same thing with saddle stitching. I think I've watched every video on the tube about 4 times and even sew along with the tutor. I get about 6 stitches that look good , and then......... everything goes straight and flat. Oh well at least I quit using Tigger thread to practice with before I went totally broke;-(

And yup that's gitin up to good bucks