A few things I've been working on

Here are a few things I've been working on lately. 

Two small notebooks which I've enjoyed making

My fridge magnets have worked out well, the magnets have been glued in with a hot glue gun as I hate it when the magnet bit falls off the back of fridge magnets don't you!  I'm not sure what to do with them yet, they seem a bit small to put in a shop.  I'm still hoping to find a place to sell my leathercraft in 'real life' and a little bowl of fridge magnets will make nice, small gifts.

I finished this and it is now in my shop.  The lacing took ages and resulted in me busting several needles!  I like the finished effect though.

I put these little mobile phone charms in my shop too.  

Right now, I am working on some decorative wrist cuffs for a customer and am really pleased with how they are shaping up.  My little shed has become something of a dumping ground over the summer, with tools and pram and paddly pool finding their way in.  I need a good old shed clearout and a bit of inspiration on how to make it a cosy place to work.  A trip to IKEA maybe!! 

New Things From My Shed

I've been busy in my little shed lately.  Here are a few things that I've made and some that are still in the pipeline -

Some of these are patches which I will soon be adding to my shop.  Others will hopefully become fridge magnets and a few will become little free gifts which I like to add to my parcels!

 This year, swallows discovered our barn and built two nests in the rafters.  It's been lovely to see them swooping in and out.  I have been doing some sketchings of them and came up with some simple designs which would work well when carved onto tooling leather.

 The antique stain really picks the details out and brings out the grain of the leather.  There were quite a few natural streaks in the bottom piece of leather which make a lovely effect I think.  The top piece will become a little notebook and the bottom piece is destined to be a personal organiser with lacing round the edges!

I carved these little pieces of tooling leather with my initials and a small flower and I will attach them to pieces of my work as a kind of signature tag.  I have sold two organisers lately - one to Australia and the other to the USA which is always exciting.  Funny to think of my work travelling to places on the other side of the world.  I have had a few keyring orders lately too, so I need to tidy my shed up a bit and maybe order more leather so I'm not running out. 

Lastly, I've been busy with this project which was a birthday present for my husband.  I bought him a Kindle for his birthday and I wanted to make a protective cover for it -

 

I was really pleased with the way it turned out.  The elastic straps hold the Kindle nice and firmly too.

Prize Draw Results!!!

Well, I received a large response to my giveaway and thank you to all of you who left comments and 'liked' my Facebook page.  This afternoon, I put all the names from this blog and my Facebook page into the hat and my two 'little' boys pulled out two winners -

The first name to be drawn was - Suhana Daughteroftheninemoons Hart!! The little leather notebook is now yours!

The second prize goes to - Laura Wehko who will receive the leather bookmark.

Once again, thank you to all of you who entered, it's been good fun and I hope the two winners enjoy their prizes.

xxx

Some of My Favourite Handmade Shops - Part Two

Here are a few more of my favourite online shops -

Here is Lively Sheep which I discovered recently on Etsy.  These fairies are really beautiful and each of my girls has one hanging up in her bedroom.  I love the small details that makes each fairy unique.  They would make a lovely gift for a little (or not so little!) girl.

This is Caractacus Pots where I have bought quite a few of my chunky mugs from.  The pottery is all hand thrown on a potters wheel and is very cosy to wrap your hands around!

And speaking of lovely, hand-thrown pottery, here is Little Wren Pottery which is another of my favourites.  This shop has some gorgeous bowls and canisters and I have promised myself a set of 'tea', 'coffee' and 'sugar' canisters with swallows on when we finally build a house.

There you go, another three of my favourite hand made online shops, I will be adding more every so often as I love browsing Etsy and the likes and discovering new places.  Don't forget to enter my blog giveaway if you haven't already and thank you to those of you who have 'liked' my Facebook page, it's been lovely to log on and see all the 'likes' I've received!  I'm a bit new to Facebook and took a bit of persuading to create a shop page, so it's been a confidence boost to see the 'likes' and messages.  All the names from here and from Facebook are going into my hat and the closing date is 14th August. xxxx

PRIZE GIVEAWAY!!!

At last, I've got my act together and I can now introduce my PRIZE GIVEAWAY!!  The first name to be drawn from the hat will receive this -

This little hand-tooled leather notebook measures 8 x 13cm and contains sixty pages of high quality, Windsor & Newton cartridge paper (110gsm) which have been stitched into the leather cover using waxed thread.

The notebook is tied with leather thonging which you can trim to suit.

Designed, carved, stamped, dyed and stitched by me and worth £20.  It's a perfect size for slipping into a handbag or coat pocket.

There is also a SECOND PRIZE for the second name that I draw out of the hat and here it is - 

A hand-tooled leather bookmark!

I've put a little length of thonging leather at the end because I always like to have something to twist and twiddle round my fingers when I'm reading a good book!!

So, what do you have to do to enter this prize draw?  If you are on Facebook, then I would love you to go to my Leathercraft page and 'Like' my shop as I'm trying to increase the 'Likes' on this page.  Here's the link - Pippa Dore Hand-Tooled Leathercraft.   

If you'd rather leave a message here instead though, that would be great and if you have any comments or suggestions that would be even better!!  Either way, your name will go into the hat and the prize draw will take place on

Tuesday 14th August 2012 

I can post anywhere in the world!!

Best of luck!!! xx

A Present for Me!!

It's been a busy week, but I've manged a little time in my shed to make a start on these two notebooks.  One of them will become the prize in my blog giveaway!!  I just have to apply some wax and give the covers a good old polish and then start measuring and cutting the paper to go inside.  Each of these notebooks has 60 pages, so it takes a little while to cut them out using my guillotine.  They will then be stitched into the leather covers with some nice, strong, waxed thread.  I like the page-stitching process.  It's a little fiddly, but it's very satisfying seeing the pages grow and the notebook filling out.  A good job to do whilst watching the racing with my dear husband!!

 I made this personal organiser last year for my shop, but I have decided to keep it for myself.  I designed the pattern myself, not long after my sixth baby was born.  It depicts a lady holding a baby, so I was always a bit reluctant to put it in my shop as I liked it too much!  It replaces the very old and tatty Filofax that I've had since I was a teenager!  I haven't thrown the old one away though (far too much of a hoarder!), I'm using that to store my old Filofax diary pages in, because I can never throw them away either, (you can imagine how cluttered my desk is!)  I love my new present to myself and it reminds me that I want to make some more personal organisers as they were very popular last Christmas and I have some new designs that I want to try out.

I'm hoping to launch the giveaway very soon and also post Part Two of my favourite handmade shops.  Hope you're all looking forward to a nice weekend. xxx

Back in Business!

Phew, my shop is finally open and I listed most of my items last night, but had to break off to eat tea, wash children and get some sleep!  Hopefully, I will get the rest of my stock listed today and photograph a few of the things that I couldn't yesterday because of the rain. 

Some of the prices have been tweaked because I am using more expensive materials these days as the finished appearance is so much nicer and the costs of my raw materials have increased.  This is the part of running a business that I find the hardest.  Give me a jammed hole punch and some spilt leather dye any day!!!  And then there are the new postage rates to consider too which are a headache.  Don't you hate that little plastic slot that they have in post offices now that the letter/packet has to squeeze through in order to decide what postage to pay?  Sometimes my postmistress gives the letter a helping shove, other times, she's feeling mean and if it so much as grazes the sides of the slot, she's certain it's a parcel!  I haven't raised my postage costs by much because I don't like to buy something and then find a huge delivery charge at the bottom, so my general price increases have shouldered a lot of the postage costs too.

It's great to have my shop open again though, just being back amongst the whole crafting community is exciting.       



Some of my favourite tools!

To celebrate the opening of my shop, I am going to offer a giveaway competition over the next week, so be sure to drop by and enter!  Details will follow .....................

Thanks again to all of you who have given me encouragement with my leathercraft business, it's meant a lot and givem me a lot of support. x