Business Card Cases in Leather

If you read my Wednesday Worktable post, you'll have seen In Progress photos of some Business Card holders I was making, from pieces of leather: 

I had cut out the leather and embossed a design onto each one.  Two were painted, one in gold and the other in silver. 

I also had various pieces of decorative paper on the table, that were suitable for lining the cases.  

They are now finished! 

Grey-beige, soft leather case, with silver-painted embossed design and blue lokta paper lining. 

Light grey, smooth leather case, with gold-painted embossed design and lined with teal lokta paper. 

Smooth red leather case, with blind-embossed design.  Lined with floral patterned Italian paper.  

This red case sold immediately, to the lovely lady who had originally persuaded me to make some more of these.  She'd asked to see the case I had made for myself, when I mentioned it on Facebook: 

This is my case, in soft black leather, with an embossed design, which I decorated in gold leaf.  The gold-leafing was really tricky and I'm still learning how to do this successfully.  The method I'm using doesn't require heating tools, but it still needs a lot of care.  I'm practising, but not yet quite good enough to make items for sale.  I'll get there though!  

Meanwhile, I'm quite pleased with my case and it was a good learning exercise.  For a start, this case doesn't hold enough cards, so I modified the design so that the new ones will take up to twenty cards.  I also changed the position of the flaps, so they are now positioned in the centre, instead of at the end.  

So now I have two cases for sale - just in case anyone would like one!  Of course, I could be persuaded to take a commission.  I do have other leather pieces in stock! 

Wednesday Worktable - Wednesday 25th March 2015 - Late Again!

This is my contribution to WOYWW (What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday), over at JuliaDunnit's Blog. Each Wednesday, Julia invites fellow crafters and bloggers to show a photo or two of their worktables, and explain what they've been doing. 

Okay, so it's Friday again... and I'm only just doing my post for WOYWW.  Sorry, but you know, Life keeps on happening!

My desk had some experiments on it this week:

Embossed pieces of leather, with some painting in gold and silver.

The leather is cut out, ready to make some of these:

A Leather Business Card Holder, that I made for myself.  Someone asked me to make one for her, so I've been busy cutting, embossing with my little letterpress system and experimenting with gold and silver decoration.  

I tried some gold / silver leafing, but I'm not good enough at it yet, so I opted for carefully painting the embossed design instead.  It looks quite nice.

I have various sheets of paper on the table, waiting for me to decide which to use for the lining papers.  It's a fun project and a bit different to book binding - a nice change! 

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That's my contribution to the WOYWW Story this week - thanks for reading.  

Why not pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground and see what else is going on in the crafting world?

Wednesday Worktable - 18th March 2015 - and More Leather!

This is my contribution to WOYWW (What's on Your Workdesk Wednesday), over at JuliaDunnit's Blog. Each Wednesday, Julia invites fellow crafters and bloggers to show a photo or two of their worktables, and explain what they've been doing. 

I've missed a few weeks, as it's been pretty busy here. What's more, today is actually Friday and I'm late for this week too!  However, I have made a few things during my busy spell and my worktable was busy this week, so I thought I would show you what's been going on here.  I'm afraid they're all "finished" photos now, as I forgot to take my In Progress desk shot - sorry!

Zebra

This notebook is a gift for a friend.  I was in Cambridge for a day last week and spent some time in the wonderful Fitzwilliam Museum.  This card was for sale in their shop.  It's an image from an old Russian matchbox; the museum has a number of these matchboxes, all decorated with interesting and artistic designs. 

My friend loves all things Zebra, so I bought the card, then decided to add a section of paper and make it into a useful notebook for her bag.   I haven't given it to her yet - I hope she will like it! 

 Red Leather Sketchbook 

This is another gift - it must be Giving Nice Things to your Friends Week! 

A lovely artist I know did something wonderful for me last week.  I decided I would love to send her a present, to show how much I appreciate her, as she's become a lovely friend over the past few months. Bright red and turquoise are a common theme in her colour palette and somehow I associate them with her, so I chose a bright piece of red leather and some beautiful deep turquoise handmade Thai tissue to line it.  I cut pages from smooth white drawing paper and special cold-pressed watercolour paper, then stitched it all together.  

A couple more shots, to show off its loveliness.  I really like this book and was so excited to send it off.  

The book was finished and ready to send - in fact she has now received it and was as surprised and pleased as I had hoped! 

These two have now been replaced with some more piles of paper and leather - more journals on the way. Watch this space!  

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That's my contribution to the WOYWW Story this week - thanks for reading.  

Why not pop over to Julia's Stamping Ground and see what else is going on in the crafting world?