Finally finished this hardened leather bottle project!

[Gullex]

I just pulled an all-nighter to finish this piece this morning. I made this at the request of a publication for an article on making hardened leather drinking vessels.

The article detailing how this was made will appear in an upcoming issue of Leather Crafter's and Saddler's Journal, after which I'll post it to my site and link here if there's interest.

This piece took me about a month and a half from the time I received the request, to the finished piece.

I began by making the hardened bottle, then created the mask/carrier device, stopper, and cord to accompany it. The mask features carnelian cabochons glued and stitched in, reclaimed crocodile inlay, and 24 karat gold accents over all the metal hardware, and some gold tooling on the mask front and back. The bottle stopper hand-carved from amboyna burl, varnished with a homemade recipe of propolis, white copal, and blonde shellac. The cord is hand-braided silk.

And yes, it's watertight.

[kiwican]

That's a great looking bottle! 

[akguy59]

That looks fantastic. I can't wait for the tutorial.