stamping real leaf impressions

[ClayB]

While in SD last weekend, we were in a shop that had some really interesting leather purses. I have never seen anything like the patterns on this stuff before but I would love to be able to do it. My wife loves leaves and HAD to have one of these, so she got one of the smallest ones they had. The purse she wanted was several hundred dollars.

There was a tag on the purse, so I googled the guys name and came up with a website. I cant get it to work very good, but that might be my computer. www.clwhiting.com

If you can get the site to work and go to about the artist, it tells how he engraves individual leaf stamps to make the impressions in the leather. It says he has over 5000 stamps to make different patterns. Then whole hides are stamped with designs and then the hide is cut to make parts for different purses. I wonder if he would be interested in selling some of those stamps??

I found a couple other sites that seem to work better and have lots of pictures of his work. http://austinpresence.com/collection/leath...leafleather.htm

http://www.viviansartforliving.com/artist....&name=&start=13

[yaklady]

While in SD last weekend, we were in a shop that had some really interesting leather purses. I have never seen anything like the patterns on this stuff before but I would love to be able to do it. My wife loves leaves and HAD to have one of these, so she got one of the smallest ones they had. The purse she wanted was several hundred dollars.

There was a tag on the purse, so I googled the guys name and came up with a website. I cant get it to work very good, but that might be my computer. www.clwhiting.com

If you can get the site to work and go to about the artist, it tells how he engraves individual leaf stamps to make the impressions in the leather. It says he has over 5000 stamps to make different patterns. Then whole hides are stamped with designs and then the hide is cut to make parts for different purses. I wonder if he would be interested in selling some of those stamps??

I found a couple other sites that seem to work better and have lots of pictures of his work. http://austinpresence.com/collection/leath...leafleather.htm

http://www.viviansartforliving.com/artist....&name=&start=13

Hi Clay,

That purse reminds me of some leather stuff I saw from a lady I know in New Zealand. To get the effect she had, she used real leaves to "stamp" into the leather. She uses a press to do it. The leaves come out looking like the real thing. Pretty neat.

Kathy

[ClayB]

Hi Clay,

That purse reminds me of some leather stuff I saw from a lady I know in New Zealand. To get the effect she had, she used real leaves to "stamp" into the leather. She uses a press to do it. The leaves come out looking like the real thing. Pretty neat.

Kathy

When I was trying to figure out how it was done, I thought of that. Using some sort of a roller over a leaf to make an impression. The leaves on the purse are actually slightly raised. I am going to have to play around with some ideas and see what happens, if I ever get my other projects finished.

Seems like somebody had something similar to this in Sheridan in the last couple years too. I'll have to go back through pictures and see.

Clay

Edited August 24, 2007 by ClayB

[Regis]

I have done similar with my rolling mill. Press various texture into gold & silver. My mill only does 4 inches wide though. I'll give it a try.

Does anyone have an old ringer-washing maching :biggrin: (if you're old enough to know what that is)

Edited August 25, 2007 by Regis

[Peter Ellis]

Very interesting effect.. I've a lady friend who is very into leaves. giving me some ideas.

In order to get the raised effect on the leather, you could make a plaster cast of the real leaf. Varnish the plaster and then use that mold on the leather. Could place the leather on the plaster and use a roller to push it into the mold, or put the plaster on the leather and use a press on the plaster to push it into the leather.

Wouldn't be a very difficult experiment, but not suited for large scale production.

Thanks for sharing.

[ClayB]

Regis,

I had thought of the same thing and I think my wife is going to try that when she gets home tonight. She has several roller press type things, one is a pasta machine, that might do that. We are going to try setting a leaf on cased leather and rolling it through the machine to see what happens. I do have the ringer off an old washing machine laying around somewhere but I think the rollers are in pretty bad shape. I am going to have to watch the auction sale bills and see if I can pick up a better one somewhere. I have heard they work really well for using the plastic Craftaid templates too. I don't used one of those in a long time, but just in case.

Peter,

More good ideas. I had also thought of something like the tap offs saddle makers use. Maybe if you can get a leaf imprint in a piece of saddle skirting, you could use that on the same order as the plaster. Another thing my wife thought of was just rubber stamping the leaf onto the leather with ink, then adding heat activated embossing powder to get the raised impression.

Lots of ideas to try, one of them will surely work. When we get around to trying them, I'll try and post pictures of the results.

Clay

[CitizenKate]

I decided to try this with a piece of scrap on my little 5-ton clicker press, and it made a fairly detailed impression of the leaf. I did not put a lot of care into the stain and finish, but it gives you a pretty good idea of the results.

Kate

[Luke Hatley]

Kate that looks very good. I beleive you are on to

something. I would like to see another trial.

One large leaf in the center surounded by

several smaller ones.

[ClayB]

I decided to try this with a piece of scrap on my little 5-ton clicker press, and it made a fairly detailed impression of the leaf. I did not put a lot of care into the stain and finish, but it gives you a pretty good idea of the results.

Kate

We tried it too and got pretty good results. We used a little crank through embossing and die cutting press my wife has for scrapbooking called a Cuttlebug. When we tried a fresh green leaf, it didn't work real well. But when we tried it with a dried leaf, it worked pretty good.

My wife liked it so much she wanted to make something out of it, so it ended up being a small notebook.

Then she decided to try some of her other scrapbooking toys on leather. She ran a piece of leather through the embossing machine with an embossing plate and came up with a really nice design on the leather.

She's going to make another little book out of that one. It looks pretty neat with highlighter on it.

It's been fun to play with something competely different than what I normally do.

Clay

[Peter Ellis]

We tried it too and got pretty good results. We used a little crank through embossing and die cutting press my wife has for scrapbooking called a Cuttlebug. When we tried a fresh green leaf, it didn't work real well. But when we tried it with a dried leaf, it worked pretty good.

My wife liked it so much she wanted to make something out of it, so it ended up being a small notebook.

Then she decided to try some of her other scrapbooking toys on leather. She ran a piece of leather through the embossing machine with an embossing plate and came up with a really nice design on the leather.

She's going to make another little book out of that one. It looks pretty neat with highlighter on it.

It's been fun to play with something competely different than what I normally do.

Clay

mmmm. I've seen those scrapbooking gizmos in the craft stores and wondered if they might work on leather. The leaf effects you and Kate got are very nice, and I'm going to have to try some of that myself

[CitizenKate]

My wife liked it so much she wanted to make something out of it, so it ended up being a small notebook.

Then she decided to try some of her other scrapbooking toys on leather. She ran a piece of leather through the embossing machine with an embossing plate and came up with a really nice design on the leather.

She's going to make another little book out of that one. It looks pretty neat with highlighter on it.

It's been fun to play with something competely different than what I normally do.

Clay,

Your wife has a good eye for design. I think you should turn her loose in your studio.

Kate

[Brandon]

Thank you for sharing!

Now I know what to do with that leaf I picked up moons ago.

B.

[Patrice]

We tried it too and got pretty good results. We used a little crank through embossing and die cutting press my wife has for scrapbooking called a Cuttlebug.

The cliker press call cuttlebug, can it be purchased anywhere in a hoby store? I'm asking this, because the fact i'm living in Canada migth reduce my option!

And, for the dryed leaf, did you put a green leaf between two pages of a book or did you used something else to dry the leaf?

Thank you, i might try this technique

[nomi]

Most major craft stores carry them in the states, not sure in Canada.

However if you google Cuttlebug you'll find a ton of online stores that carry the item that could probably ship to Canada.

- Noel

[CitizenKate]

And, for the dryed leaf, did you put a green leaf between two pages of a book or did you used something else to dry the leaf?

I used a fresh leaf on mine, but my mother used to dry flower petals by the method you mention.

Kate

[Hoyden]

ClayB - Your wife rocks.

I used to scrap book and many of the mentioned tools sitting in tupper containers down stairs. I think they may be getting a new life.

It's good to be a pack rat!!

~ Noel

[ClayB]

Kate,

When I rebuilt our basement a few years ago, I built a studio for my wife to do her crafts in. She let me come out of the closet I had my leather stuff in and use a corner of her room. It wasn't long before she had her room filled up, and I had to move out to the last remaining corner of the basement. Now my corner is about as full as it can get. There are a lot of things in our crafts that overlap and we can share and it's fun to be able to work together.

Patrice,

As someone mentioned, the cuttlebug can be found in a lot of craft stores here in the states and you should be able to find it online. When we tried to use a green leaf, it squished all the juice out of it and kind of made a mess. The dried one worked a lot better. We had some dry leaves laying around that I picked up several years ago because I thought they looked cool. Never knew what we were going to do with them. We have dried leaves and flowers in between pages of a book.

Noel,

I am sure there are lots of your scrapbooking things you can make use of with leather too.

I have shared all your comments with Stacy (my wife). Thanks all of you for you encouragement.

Clay

[Patrice]

ClayB and Kate

Thank you for your advices! :biggrin:

[CitizenKate]

That is so neat!

Kate

There are a lot of things in our crafts that overlap and we can share and it's fun to be able to work together.