February 20, 2012: A studly creation.

 This bad boy is a beast! It is a leather cuff made out of an old belt. I had scored a bunch of belts at Salvation Army and this was one of them. It already had the holes and the metal studs on it so it was a very simple creation (if it is even acceptable to call it a creation??). I just cut it shorter and added a belt loop that fit from another belt. This holds the flap down after you snap the cuff into place.

February 16, 2012: Inquiry Braid

This past summer I took a bar tending course in NYC... yeah, I know. A girl's gotta have skills to fall back on right? Anyway, it turns out that the best thing I learned from that was how to make a mystery braid! My partner was a girl who was a junior at the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT). I was asking her all kinds of annoying questions because in one of my next lives I plan on going there. She explained what her classes were like and I remember thinking how awesome it must be to be in a college program where you are creating 24/7 - awesome. So the conversation turned to her bracelet, which was a leather band that was braided but the leather was still in one piece at either end, where the snap was. So this intrigued me. I had seen them before but never really looked at one. I asked her if she knew how it was made and she said she didn't. She took it off and we both inspected it, trying to figure out how it was made. When the class startedback up she put it back on. We had not figured it out. That bothered me.

On my train ride home I searched YouTube for the answer and was pleased to find this brilliant leatherworker woman! (I think I posted her video about snap fastening earlier.)


When I got home I made several of these. It is important to make more than one of something because you get better each time. You also develop your own methods for doing things. Once you do something a few times and "know" how to do it, that is when creativity can take hold. You can try new things and make it yours.
The next week, I went back to the class and showed the FIT girl the bracelet. I took it apart and showed her how I made it. (Just watch... she will be some famous designer and her garments will be riddled with mystery braids.... ha.)
So here are two of the bracelets I made at that time:

I made the white one below out of a leather piece from one of my father's old leather sample books. The pieces are not long enough to fit around my wrist so I made a mystery braid and then added ribbon or clamp ends and a clasp. I found these "ribbon ends" at Metaliferous in NYC. The clasp itself I took off of an old necklace. :) Reuse! 

This is the one I made Feb 16th

I have since given it away to a student.

February 9, 2012: Jammin'... well not quite

Last year I had the wonderful idea to learn how to play the guitar. I still REALLY want to learn but I realize that it will take some serious work and dedication... and that means time... which is hard to come by. I asked a very talented young lady, a student, to teach me how to play. She was enthusiastic about it and we got started... we were able to get a couple of lessons in after school but then both of our schedules seemed impossible. Regardless, I truly do thank her for her time and willingness to attempt to help me. I think we will resume again... we shall see...
I made her this bracelet. When I hear the word "jammin'" I think of musicians... so I thought it was a cool word to punch on her bracelet. Check it out :)

This bracelet is made from an old belt (the buckle is still on it - that's what closes the bracelet). Then I punched the word into a pieces of sterling silver. To help the letters stand out more, I used the liver of sulfur again to oxidize the metal. Then I buffed the surface of the metal and the letters stayed oxidized (to learn more about the oxidation and liver of sulfur, click the label's below to jump to previous posts). I used rivets to attach the silver to the leather.

February 4, 2012:

As I may have mentioned, my dad does some amazing upholstery and woodworking for various things such as classic cars, private jets, antique furniture, custom furniture, etc. - you name it. He is truly one of the most talented people that I have ever met. This past summer, two of the cars that he did the interiors for were first in their class at Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance - the most prestigious classic car competition in the world! The one car, the 1934 Voisin, won Best In Show! Jay Leno was certainly impressed - Check out this video.

Anyway, the reason I am telling you all of this is that my dad's shop has been a wonderful place to gather materials for my projects over the years :). Among my favorite things to get from his shop are leather sample books! Leather companies send little sample books with various colors of leather. The pieces are small and have so much potential! In this project I cut two strips from different samples out of the book. I braided the two strips together with a piece of chain and connected the ends to some metal rings that I got at Beads World in NYC. At first I thought I was going to make this into a bracelet but suddenly I was struck with the idea of making this asymmetrical necklace, which I am really happy with! I had to make sure that I had heavier chain on the bottom so that the braided part would hang to the side. I attached a lighter weight chain to the top, which will prevent that from moving toward the bottom and shifting the location of the braided part. I used jump rings to connect the chain parts. I used fabric glue to fold the leather parts over and connect them to the metal rings. I think I will get quite a bit of wear out of this one :).

January 22, 2012: A tail of leather

First, let me apologize for the late posting! Where have two weeks gone!? Honestly... these two weeks have been quite a test of my ability to pull this off. Between a birthday, grading and going quite a bit above and beyond what I owe my district (but I am truly happy to do it!!).... I have had to scrounge time to create much less actually update Period Ten. But here I am :) and I am hoping to see the Giants win the Super Bowl later so let's do this....

So, as I have mentioned before, I really enjoy using the beat up leather from old belts. It just has at the look and feel that you can not get from new leather that you might order new. This leather is actually from the same belt that my "wrap-it-up" bracelets were made from... and there's still plenty to go! This braid looks similar to a fishtail braid that I use in my hair (how to tutorial). Previously, I did not know how to get this look with other material (than hair). I found this tutorial on... what else?... Pinterest. It shows you how to do this with paracord, which is used by the military, firefighters, law enforcement, etc. I will follow up with a story about a student who taught me all about paracord at a later date (when I make a paracord creation!). I chose to use the leather strips that I love so much :) 

The closure for this bracelet was the most difficult part. I ended up using a vintage clip-on earring finding as a hook. Check out the close-up photo.

January 14, 2012: It's a Wrap!

Today I revisited an old project that just did not end up quite right. To make this wrap bracelet originally, I took apart an old, black, braided leather belt. I took one of the strips of leather and hammered it and stretched it until it straightened out a bit. Once it looked straight and had the "worn" look that I was going for, I painted over the strip with turquoise acrylic paint. Once the paint dried I took either side of the strand in my hands and stepped my foot on the middle of the strand with the painted part hitting the bottom of my shoe. Then I moved the strand side to side, scraping it on the bottom of my shoe to make the paint peel and rub away. This gave it an old, beat-up look, which I love! When the strip of leather had the look I was going for it was time to figure out how to close the bracelet on my wrist. I punched holes in either end of the leather strip and added a rivet reinforcement. At the time, I added a silver chain and a crab-claw clasp. This was very difficult to close around my wrist. So, the bracelet sat around and I stared at it once in a while wondering how I could make it easier to close so I could wear it. Well, when I was in NYC recently I found some magnetic clasps. This was the answer to my dilemma! So now I am excited because my bracelet is much easier to take on and off :). I will probably be producing a bunch of these in the near future so stay tuned for an Etsy or Facebook link to purchase one if you are interested!

January 5, 2012: Wrap it up!

One of my favorite jewelry trends is the wrap bracelet. And, as I have mentioned before, I have been collecting old leather belts from thrift stores and rummage sales. Also, this is a great time to mention that I am a huge fan of upcycling, so you will see much more of old things becoming new things!...For this brown, leather creation, I took apart one of those braided leather belts and stretched and hammered the strands until they were somewhat straight and softened (not too straight though because I like the worn, rugged look of them). As you can see, I made two separate bracelets; one is braided with chain and the other contains two plain strands. I used little clamp ends that you basically just hammer closed on the ends of the leather. then I attached magnetic fasteners, which are fabulous! A frustrating thing about wrap bracelets is that they can be a pain to close... not these ones! I found these clamp ends and closures at a Bead World on Broadway (around 37th street) in NYC. My favorite thing about these are the fact that you could wear them separately or you can use the opposite magnetic ends and make one large wrap bracelet or even a funky necklace (with the braided chain one hanging in front and the plain one behind your neck). Cool look :)

January 2, 2012: Leather Cuff

I have always admired cool leather cuff bracelets. After scouting Etsy and some funky street markets in NYC I started buying used leather belts at thrift stores and rummage sales. Now I have a beastly collection! This past summer I played around with making a couple of cuffs. My father works with tons of leather for work and also has a snap fastener and hole punchers, etc. Naturally, having tools available made my dreams of creating leather cuffs more realistic. So the crafting began :). However, I had seen all types of bracelets that had different types of fabric, metal, other leather pieces, etc. attached to the leather cuff with metal fasteners. Well, this 2012 endevor inspired me to see what I could do. I learned the difference between rivets, grommets and eyelets. Not an easy task! Rivets are solid on top and are used to fasten two pieces of fabric together. Grommets (larger) and eyelets (smaller) have holes in them, creating a reinforced hole in the fabric. Anyway... I found rivets at A.C. Moore and used them to stick two pieces of leather (from repurposed leather belts) together. I stamped the word "live." in the top piece. Check it out!