Leather Feathers

Some of them are metallic acrylics, and some are regular acrylics with shimmery alcohol ink highlights, and some are all alcohol inks. :blush:

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millions of pairs of military feet can’t all be wrong. :sunglasses:

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Medium PG leather

I purchased a cut file from an Etsy vendor, but by the time I finished tweaking and nudging and modifying it, it had long since stopped looking anything like what I bought. Annoying how often that happens. I’d save myself a lot of money if I could just come up with stuff from scratch instead of having to transmogrify something to get where I want to go!

I blame it on having grown up in Japan. They never invent their own stuff; instead they take stuff other people invent, and make it better. It’s apparently contagious. Or something. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

I include the holes. Otherwise I’d have to go buy Yet Another Tool, and besides it would add an extra step. And I’m lazy. :slight_smile:

The spine down the center is engraved. The others are scored.

After painting and polishing the feather, I paint the spine and the back with vinegar that’s had steel wool dissolved in it. That turns the leather black, and I just like how it looks. The coating of polish keeps it from getting into the painted areas when I paint the spine. Sometimes it can soak through enough to show through the paint, but it just adds some extra interest, so I don’t get too worried about it.

I really don’t know anything about leather, and when I impulsively decided to start making stuff with it I wasn’t patient enough to do much digging, because the urge to DO was upon me. So I just used what I had. Turns out I got lucky and happened to have stuff that works, so I didn’t have to pay the price for my impulsivity, which means it will live on to drive my crafting another day. :wink:

I use acrylics and alcohol paint, which, it turns out, are similar enough to what real leather workers use to actually be viable options. And I didn’t have any fancy conditioners and waxes, but I have shoes, and some of them are leather, so I raided the shoe polish box and discovered the Kiwi stuff in the metal cans works nicely, as long as you don’t put it on heavily enough to obliterate the score lines.

I’ve also massaged coconut oil (because it’s what I had!) into the backs of some of them to make them feel less dry and stiff, and that seems to work fine, too.

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Yes, it would! Maybe multiple smaller feathers overlapping each other.

One of my friends wants me to do necklaces made of two feathers (one down each side of the neck). Too many ideas, too little time!

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To clarify, the cut file I bought was just for a generic feather; I turned it into a bracelet. :slight_smile: In case that’s what you meant!

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Wow! they look stunning!!

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Beautiful!

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I LOVE those. So beautiful!!! I wanna play too!

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Absolutely beautiful!

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The colors are amazing, along with the work. Great job!

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Really beautiful work! I’ve read that other GF users had some trouble using leather (the suede side would get messed up in some way) - did you have any trouble? Just curious. And again, really lovely work. My urges to “do” never come out half as well!

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Thanks! The suede side gets a tiny bit crispy here and there, but I just sand it off with a scrap of sandpaper and you can’t tell a thing. I also discovered that working in a glob of coconut oil (it’s what was handy at the time) from the back side makes the whole thing nice and soft, too, once it’s all soaked in. :slight_smile:

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wow… beautiful. I would totally buy that

Look for SerenityMHDesigns on Etsy! :wink: I only have 3 left at the moment, but am cutting another batch, and will be happy to do a custom request for a fellow ‘forger if there’s not one there that will work for you. :blush:

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That’s awesome! I will look. I hope be be launched by end of summer, too!

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Very creative and beautiful work.

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I would like to buy two if you’re selling! lovely !

I’m not set up for making them right now, unfortunately! We just moved from WA to TX and most of my crafting stuff (including the leather working stuff) is still in a box somewhere.

We’re living in my parents’ house for a while, helping them disseminate their stuff after moving to retirement living, so unpacking is minimal and kind of random for now, depending on what ended up in which box and whether anything in it is something we need in the near future. :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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Love the color wash you did.

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