Step by Step

 The Beginning of Billfold Making- Sketching out the design on the leather.

 This big pile of leather is the billfold faces all cut up and ready to be glued.

 The billfold faces after they've been glued and interfaced.

The finished product.  All ready to go!

Building up my Shops

So, after this weekend, I should be able to concentrate on strictly building up the inventory in my shops. I am thinking about cancelling my icraft shop and just concentrating on Etsy and artfire for now. I just need a spot for my handbags for now, and that's what I am doing with icraft. I love the site, but I spend way more time on the other two. Although, I have promised myself that I will work strictly on leather bags, since the fabric ones don't do very well for me. So, I will be finishing up the few custom orders that I have and a couple of other projects(collars, belts, etc.) so I can get a bunch of wallets, cuffs, and etc. cut out and ready to put together. My plan is to be prepared for the arrival of baby Ed(that's her new name) and the holiday season this year, so I am starting now. I want to get my already established designs ready to go so I can focus my time in the early Fall on a couple of new ones, mainly guitar straps and belts, and a few smaller items. I hope to have lots of pictures of my progress to share over the next few weeks, wish me luck. Happy Fourth of July all! Enjoy your festivities!

21 Week Belly Shot

Since I can't get Mark to take a pic of me, I took one of myself, reclining in the papa chair, covered with lint and glue from my various fruit projects and such. This is at twenty-one weeks, and now, I actually have a belly that looks like a baby belly, not a belly that looks like I have been eating and drinking way too many frosty beverages.

I am off once again to finish up my fruit pouches( my sewing machine hates me by the way) and then it's on to some little handbags. After that, who knows! Hopefully I will get to start putting together all the stuff I have cut out and ready to sew soon. Wish me luck.

Martian Pouches and New Puppies!

I finished this pouch yesterday. I had made one before but a little smaller and in black and white, not sparkly green and black. I really like the idea. I think I will play with the design a bit more, just to see what the possibilities are. The green is really wonderful, shimmery and pale but with a bit of gold in it. It looks great against the black leather. It kind of reminds me of space. I think I will call it the "Martian Pouch" because of it's space-like qualities. I put a couple pockets inside for organizing. I like the idea of being able to find what you are looking for in a flash, even with a little bag. I chose to add the key clip too, I just like the idea of having all my stuff in one place, especially when I am chasing Ciaran all over the place. Well, I hope someone falls in love with it, because if they don't, I just may use it myself.

Ciaran and I had planned to meet our parent's new puppy Duffy yesterday. Except that Ciaran is running a bit of a fever and is sort of lethargic. I think it is the new teeth he is getting, but we decided to play it safe and stay home. I called my mom to let her know that we would be staying home for the evening and that we would try to get over there to meet the puppy sometime this week. It turns out that they adopted two puppies instead of just one. Now they have Duffy and Matilda, I guess my mom just fell in love with Matilda so now they have gone from a non doggy household to a two doggy household. This should be an interesting journey for them. I can't wait to meet them and see how Ciaran reacts to them, he has developed a great love of all dogs over the last couple of weeks. He is going to be in doggy heaven!