I promise I will get back to projects soon . . .

With everything going on I haven't been working on leather as much as I would like.  But we have put the store back together and we are having a Summer Sale to celebrate!

When you purchase anything from our store in the next two weeks you can type either:

SUMMERFUN to get 25% off your entire order

or

SUMMERSAVINGS to get FREE SHIPPING

You just need to type those in the coupon code field.

Thanks for sticking with me and as always let me know if you have any questions.

Happy Crafting!

New Items on The Store

Just wanted to let you all know that we have put some new stuff on the store. As always, more to come. Thanks for reading!

When will Then be Now . . . .

 . . . .now actually.

The store is open!  Currently there are only a few items on the store but that is going to change in the coming days.  I also am working on a project that will be featured here and . . .elsewhere.  More details to come.  Thanks for sticking with me and I'm really excited about what's to come!

Our Store!

As always, drop me a line if you have any questions.

Happy Crafting!

Coming Soon!

Hello everyone!  We are back from our vacation and settling back into normality.  Well, relative normality, as my wife is still diligently looking for a job.  She has a few nibbles at the line and we are waiting to hear if anything comes of them.  In the mean time I'm working to start back up with this blog and the store.  I'm not ready just yet to open the store back up but I'm working on it.  I'm guessing we will be back open in a few weeks.

(NOTE:  If there is a development in regards to a potential move or what have you this obviously will change the timeline.  In any case I will make sure to keep everyone posted as to what is happening.)

One more thing before I let you go.  I have something in the works that I'm really excited about.  I still have to work out some kinks in the formula but if it works I think you all will really like it.  Basically I came up with an idea that I really think could work.  I may even get a "Kickstarter" going to help build some capital.

As always, let me know if you have any questions or comments.  Thanks again for sticking with me.  You guys are awesome!

Some Rambling . . .

Hello again.  I figured since I have posted on our Etsy Site, Facebook Page, Twitter, and Google+ page I should probably fill you guys in as well. . . .

Here is the deal.  We put our site "On Vacation."  It's a cute way of saying "Temporarily Closed."  We are coming back though.  Emphasis on temporary.  In fact we are not really gone.  I'm still here.  I plan on being here for awhile.   (You might not know it from my lack of activity on this blog but I am here.  More on that later.)  So if you have questions, thoughts, ideas, gripes, or whatever send them on to me and I will be happy to respond.  For those of you wondering here is what is going on:

Life.

As I've said elsewhere this isn't a bad thing.  On the contrary good things are happening.  Basically my wife just finished grad school yesterday.  We are all very excited for her but it made for a bit of a stressful go for a couple of months.  Her constantly studying and me picking up slack (which I happily did) to make sure she could continue to study until her professors told her to stop.  (Which considering she finished yesterday should be sometime in August.)

So her graduation ceremony is in two weeks.  Family is coming into town and staying with us (so my leather shop will be someone's dresser for a week) and we have a lot planned for that.  Not to mention a close friend of ours is also finishing Nursing School and is becoming and RN so there is a lot celebrating and alcohol consumption in our future.  (For those that dislike alcohol I'll pretend it's root beer.)

That is the fun side of things but there is also a practical consumer of our time.  Now my wife is in a search of a job.  She is applying all over the United States.  From what her "career counselors" in her grad program tell us, the busy interview time is also in the next three weeks.  And considering she has applied to many positions already we are expecting (hoping) she starts to get calls for interviews.  I'm sure you are asking what that has to do with my leather work.  Putting aside all the family events in the near future (in addition to a real vacation that we are going on the first week of June) my wife is a big part of the store.  Not only does she make stuff for the shop but she also handles a lot of the business side of things.  While I'm OK at that part and can hold my own, it wouldn't be a good idea with all this stuff going on.  I would not be able to give my customers the attention they deserve.  I don't want to risk upsetting a customer just because I wanted to keep the shop open all year around.

Now if she gets a job near our home then I will be able to open the shop right after we get back from our real vacation and everything will be great.  But if she gets a job that requires us to relocate then that will entail a whole new set of challenges.  I didn't want to have 9 unfulfilled orders in the balance while we figure out how to move to Alaska or wherever.  Why am I explaining myself?  Because I feel you should know why I would do something like this.  I want you to know that I had a good reason to put my shop on hold.

I also wanted to inform you of this because I thought I would pass along a little bit of my philosophy and the way I do things.  In my "real" life I work for a great company.  A phenomenal company really.  A couple of years back they sent me on a seminar called "95 Share."  I could write up five to ten blog posts about this seminar but it was unlike any business seminar I have ever attended.  I recommend it.  To make a long story short the whole point of the seminar is to treat your customers, your coworkers, your employees, everyone you come into contact with right.  Treat them right.  Do right by them and they will do right by you.  Don't tell them how great you are, show them.  Simple concept.  It works.  When I started my shop I used this philosophy and it has worked.  It generates more business but that is just a side benefit.  (The guy that runs the seminar would argue with me on whether it is a side benefit thing or the whole point but stick with me.)  It just makes you feel good.  Even if the customer is driving you crazy with off the wall questions and requests when all is said and done, if you treated that customer right, then you feel good.  So do they.  It just works.

Shifting gears one last time I want to apologize for the lack of activity on the site here.  About a month ago I received some bad news that disheartened me for a little bit.  Nothing Earth shattering or anything.  But it was bad news that directly related to my leather work.  I can't get into details but ultimately it made me want to take a break from leather.  I still filled orders and went through the motions but I had lost the desire to lock myself in my workshop and work on new ideas.  This also aided in my interest in this blog.  I do want to point out this has nothing to do with the current shop situation.  The last few weeks I have wanted to get back into the workshop but I just haven't had the time.  Every day the urge grows.  So look out for more stuff.

Well I have rambled on long enough.  Thanks for stopping by.  As always, send me any questions you have and Happy Crafting!

Quick Note About Our Etsy Site

Just wanted to let everyone know that we are restructuring how we post items on Etsy.  It's a bit of a process as I am branching out into other types of projects other than my basic fare.  This means that some items that you may have seen before are no longer on the site.  I still will do custom items and I have a "Custom" listing for each type of item I sell.

I do have more projects coming and I just have to finish working out the kinks.  (I plan to put up some posts in regards to these new items.)  More to come soon.

As always, drop me a line if you have any questions.  Have a great day!

Happy Crafting!

Airbrush

I have stumbled across a wonderful thing.  I was perusing Leatherworker.net looking for ideas on how to treat leather (more on that later) and discovered a process that I have since tried and it works beautifully.

Airbrushing your dyes and finishes.  Yes, it works.  

I'm sure there are leather veterans who read this and scoff because they have been doing it for years.  But for me it was a new idea and a very attractive one for a couple of reasons.  

- 1st: I'm an all around artist who has been interested in getting an airbrush for painting on canvas, models, etc.  Up till now I never had the justification to purchase the equipment.  (I had a hard enough time convincing the missus that I needed all these new leather supplies and this was after our Etsy store was making us money.  I couldn't really justify dropping 200-300 bones on airbrush supplies for my personal enjoyment.  Remember: I didn't know airbrushing stains onto leather was a thing until four days ago.)     

- 2nd: I was having issues with the way I was putting stain on and was looking for a solution.  At first I was using old t-shirts.  (Not the worst idea in the world, but you end up wasting a lot of stain as the shirts suck up the excess.  I was going through almost 4 ounces of stain a week and only fifteen cuffs to show for it.)  After talking to the folks at my local Tandy store I started to use plain old paper towels.  This solved the waste problem as cheap paper towels only suck up a small fraction.  I still wasn't completely satisfied.  (I would still stand by paper towels though if you aren't interested in airbrushing or spending the money to get one.)  

- 3rd: Time.  It was taking me more time than I would like staining these pieces.  Since most of what I sell is sold using the same stain I was looking for a way to cut down the time.  

Airbrushing looked like it would solve all of that.  I did some research and found that it isn't that difficult and if you are smart about it, it can be a great way to go.  So the other day I purchased an airbrush and a compressor.  After some testing with water to get used to the gun I tried staining some scrap pieces black.  It works wonderfully.  Since then I have stained a few cuffs and a belt.  I can't say enough on how happy I am.

There are few things you need to be aware of before you dive into this:

- It isn't cheap.  You can't get a good set up for less than $150 and that is if you know where to look and you have a coupon when you get there.
                          - I recommend that you get a "starter" airbrush kit that will give you what you need.  (This will NOT include an air compressor)  It will include almost everything else you need.  If you are pinching pennies you could get one for less than $50 dollars, but you will get what you pay for.  You may also need to pick up an adapter so you can hook it up to a compressor.  You can probably avoid this if you get a nicer Paasch or Badger airbrush.  If you have enough you can get an Iwata but that may be overkill.  We got a Paasch airbrush kit that had everything we needed.  That put us back a little over $100 dollars.  It is a "double action" trigger with allows you to control the spray using the trigger.  This isn't a necessity if you are just doing leather.
                           - You also need a compressor.  Sears or Home Depot has them and you can pick up one for less than $100 but you probably will need to get adapters to fit the air brush and it will probably be noisy.  If you plan to use your brush constantly you may want to look into larger models.  There are plenty of airbrush sites that can guide you in that regard.  I got a portable compressor just for airbrushing.  It goes up to 50 PSI and works great so far.  It put me back $190 and it was one of the cheaper ones specifically for airbrushing.  You also can get a CO2 tank that will last you a good while but they are about $100 or so a piece and you would need to replace it when it depleted.  Not the cheapest option in the long haul.  Not to mention this really is only an option if you are working out of your garage or basement.

- Get a mask or respirator and make sure you have good ventilation in the area you are working.  You are aerating chemicals and you don't want to be breathing that crap in.  I've noticed that some sites don't seem to stress this very much.  They mention it, but almost as an afterthought.  Unless you have a hood over your work space I would recommend this.  Just saying.

- ALWAYS, always, ALWAYS clean your airbrush out before you walk away.  It takes only a minute or two and it will save you a lot of money.  Just pull the jar out, rinse it off, fill halfway with water, spray that out until it sprays clear, then call it a day.

So that is my run down on airbrushes.  I highly recommend them and I'm really happy with how much stuff is turning out.  Let me know what you think about them or how you have yours set up.  Until next time, Happy Crafting!

  

Workspace

Hello all.  I realize it has been awhile since I have put something up on this blog.  Here is where I give all the excuses about the holidays being busy and I couldn't find the time.  It's all true but I'll spare my typing hands and your time.

Anyway, today I wanted to talk about work space.  Up until just after Christmas my work space was a table that I would have to set up each night for leather work and then clean up afterward so my wife could use the space for sewing.  (In theory.  This didn't always happen, much to the chagrin of my wife.)  This was not ideal but I was working with what I had.  After Christmas my wife and I discussed it and since my leather work was actually making us some money and it was something I needed to work on night after night we decided to create a dedicated space for my leather tools and work area.  After a trip to Lowes I put up a peg board and got everything ready.

The key to setting up a work space for leather is actually quite easy.  It's just like any other space you would set up for any other hobby.  You put the items that you use most often in the most easily accessible spot and then as the use of the product goes down the difficulty to pull it out goes up.  For example you want your swivel knife to be easily reached while your sewing awl kit is just far enough away you need to stand to get it.  You will be using your knife often but the sewing awl kit gets pulled out rarely.  Simple concept.

I have included a photo of my new work space.  What you can't see in the photo is there is a space just to the left of the picture that is dedicated to staining my pieces.  This works well as I am able to clear that space when needed if I'm cutting leather strips or need a large space to work on.  It also may be hard to tell that the majority of my tools and supplies are on the peg board.  Very little is on the table.  (I will admit it is a bit messy in this shot.)  But it works out great as I have all the space I need on the table and still have easy access to all of my things.  You may not be ready to take this step yet as you are still only dipping your toe into the hobby.  That works too.  It's how I did it for fourteen years.

If you don't have a dedicated space for your leather or you have to pack everything up after each session then I have a couple of suggestions.  Get a tool box to organize your things.  Or a large plastic bin, using smaller bins to contain the smaller items.  (I used cigar boxes to hold most of my tools save for stamping tools I put in a tool rack that was also kept in the big bin.)  Also get a craft compartment box to separate all the tiny pieces of hardware you will be working with.  This can include anything from a belt buckle to your sewing needles to your straight razors refills for your utility knife.  If you can find a place to stick your granite slab for good that is ideal as moving that around can be difficult.  (Not to mention a nightmare if you drop it.  That will not be an inexpensive repair to your floor or your foot!)  But if you have to move it, always do so with care.

Currently I'm working out of a spare room in my house.  But any space will do.  A garage or basement set up would be great.  These are all just thoughts and ideas.  This is how I do it.  Drop me a line and let me know how you set up your space.  Send me a photo of it and I'll post it.

As always drop me a line at

theslackjaw@gmail.com

That's all for now.  Happy Crafting!