Crafts, and biting my tongue

I really want to tell you guys about this thing that I made (see previous entry), but as it’s still going to be a Christmas gift for Sister X, I’m still going to bite my tongue.  However, I will note that I posted a picture of the prototype to reddit, and made it to the front page (granted, you had to subscribe to the subreddit in order to see it on the front page, but still).  It currently has 1921 upvotes, which is absolutely ridiculous as the most karma I’d had before was like 700 from a comment I’d made last year.  I got a TON of positive feedback and people saying that they would love to buy it, so I’m actually feeling motivated at the moment to make more of these.  Unfortunately, they might have to go on the back burner until after Christmas since those gifts should be a priority, and I just have two months left to finish everything.

That said, I will say that I went to the leather store on Saturday and got these two pieces (cat for scale) for a really good price; the tooling side (the lighter colored piece…I can’t remember what it’s called specifically) was $50, and the darker piece on top – which is folded into quarters in the picture – was $40.  Both really good prices.

Uh huh.  All that leather — so exciting!!!!  Plus I got some rivets and buckles and a bone folder, so it was a great trip.  Was playing around with my pyrography kit (which, I’m sorry Mom, but I had never really played around with very much before, even though I’ve had it for lots and lots of years now…) and have decided that I love it and it’s more versatile than tooling.  You’ll notice the imperfections below, but nothing I make is perfect and anyway, this was a practice piece.  I just thought it was cool-looking, with the tree and all.

So last night I meant to take a bath and clean the house some, and do some laundry, but instead I pretty much just sat around working on Sister X’s present, drinking hot cider, and watching Rosemary’s Baby.  Good pre-Halloween evening.  How did I forget that I get so much pleasure out of making stuff like this??  I have no idea.  This happens all the time, though — I’ll be on fire about a certain project or hobby, then get distracted and go 6-12 months before I remember that I actually loved whatever the original hobby was.  I guess variety is important.  Alternating between leather crafting, quilting, and drawing is kind of fun anyway.  I just get too distracted by things like Skyrim.  Gotta work on that.