Leather weather

 I posted on Twitter last year how a friend of mine who works in a leather company told me that her manager was trying to get rid of extra stuff and scraps they had lying around. She asked if I wanted some. I never said "yes" so fast in my life!

Well, it turned out that the extra stuff they had meant two trips to the warehouse, with our van fully loaded! I felt like I hit the jackpot, and so grateful to have such people in my life.

These two pics are about half of the stuff they gave me.

Anyhoo, I finally decided to make some stuff with these treasures:)

First make, a basic leather tote bag. 

As you can see, it's a pretty big bag, which meant it can fit all my stuff!

Some work-in-progress stuff:D

Next up, a small shoulder bag for my short trips:

                                           

WIP pics

And last but not the least, a small key chain

I stamped it with a "W" for the family last name.

So, here are some of the tools I use.

I get them from Lee Valley, but the mallet is from Michaels. If you sew, sewing with leather is pretty much the same, except you really do need a heavy-duty machine to do so. The leather I've used for the bags are upholstery leather (chrome-tanned), which means they are thinner and thus can go through a regular machine (albeit slowly). You can also sew them by hand.

If you are interested, here is the tutorial I followed for the basic tote (except I used different dimensions and a different type of leather. I also added a snap for closure.).

Have you tried making your own bags and stuff? How did it go?