Slowly Returning to "Normal"

If "normal" is actually a state that can be achieved. Ha. As many of my followers know, I have since had a baby, her wiggleyness, Adelaide. Born November 3rd, she is now 4 months old. Time flies! Before your eyes even when you have an infant. :)

Adjustment to having a child has been good. It helps that Miss Wiggle is a pretty easy going gal. I have made a for fun blog dedicated to her antics, Our Little Balloon, if anyone is interested. Not sure how often I will update it, but I hope to only provide content if something interesting happens.

Anyhow, since having a baby is now my full time gig, getting time to work the leathers has been slow. However, I have managed to work on a few small projects these last couple months. Most notably a bag order for my aunt. Smaller projects include some deerskin wallets and a neat looking braided bracelet.

find at ceruleanjay.com

I have decided to recommit to slowly working on projects again, so hopefully there will be updates yet again.

That's all for now.

Update! Still pregnant and being creative just on different stuff!

Hello all! I have been quite remiss in my blogging duties as of late. I have shut down my Etsy store until the baby arrives and have basically just not done much since, so there is not much to report. Planning to do cloth diapers, so I made a few fitted covers and prefolds as well as worked on fixing one of my husbands flannels to have nice looking sleeve plackets (I made the cuffs too tight last time, and the plackets provided too much of a breeze for him in the winter, so I am doing the overlapping more complicated kind this time).

I have also gotten OBSESSED with character creation in inkscape as of late, since it requires no bending over or sitting on the floor which it getting quite difficult with the baby getting so big and all. I have done Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and a couple more fun fairy tale theme characters complete with a simple scene for them to live in. Head over to my portfolio to check those out! I am hoping I am slowly becoming a vector art master :) I am hoping to come up with some way to sell these designs in the future, maybe on fabric or making greeting cards or notebooks or something like that. I'll keep you all posted on that as things develop.

Anyhow, I figured I would add a quick line to let you all know I'm not dead, just lazy and pregnant! lol Due the 27th. I am ready though anytime! :) (sorry no pics! Seriously though check out my other blog, and you can get pics a plenty!)

Leather Laptop Messenger Bag: Weekly Update

Hello everyone!

I have been working on a new bag design this week. It will be very similar to my Artist's Leather Messenger Bag, but this one will be slightly larger and thinner to allow for a laptop computer. Here is my inkscape mock up of how I am thinking the design will end up.

I have started on the prototyping process. Here are a couple pictures of the different versions I have come up with.

I think my husband's favorite part of my business is that he often gets the new products I come up with, and this bag is no exception. I am making it to be the right dimensions for his laptop and cord. Ideally, the final design would be made to order, and I could fit it to the dimensions of each individual customer's laptop.

The biggest challenge so far is to make an attractive looking pocket for the cord to fit in, as it is an awkward sort of thing to put in a bag. My husband insists that he would love for the charger to be in the flap area of the bag so that it it easy to grab when the bag is sitting open, so that is how I have designed it. I am still toying with the option of adding a gusset type piece stitched into the side of the flap (see flap B) to give it a bit more of an area for the charger to fit, or if I should just allow it to sit in a flat pocket (see flap A), where it will likely stretch the leather out a bit over time to create more room if it needs it. Hopefully this picture shows what I mean:

Also trying to decide if I need some snaps or a zipper to keep the pocket flap closed when not in use.

For this particular bag, my husband picked out some really nice 4oz buffed cowhide.

Other than that, I have been looking through some of my shoe listings and trying to update my item descriptions and really trying to think about what it truly important in my products. What makes it unique, what would make customers pick me over other options.

As you may or may not know, I am going to have a baby in the next month-ish, so I have been slowly removing listings, especially those that take a long time to make, in order to prepare for the inevitable break I will be taking from my shop. I will be putting it in full vacation mode probably end of next week or the next, depending on how things go. I am trying to use some of this time to refocus my goals so I can come back strong when the store is back up and running.

Anyhow, I'm supposed to post a link to this post on Facebook in about 4 minutes, so I better be done for now. Tune in next week! (If there is no next week, you can assume I am pushing out a baby or am very busy nesting and you can expect to get an update on that soon as I can!)