Saturday, December 15, 2007

New Leather

I buy all my leather online, almost exclusively from Ebay. There don't seem to be any local suppliers and I haven't even had much luck finding a competitive supplier in my own country. So I've become an importer of animal hides. This box of leather came in the mail this week, mostly deerskin, all wonderfully soft and rich amazing colours.

This box of leather came from Wholesale Leathers, an eBay store. I have ordered from here many times and always get great hides and can usually get anything I request even if it isn't listed in the eBay store - good customer service is a bonus. I think these are garmet-quality hides so they are really very soft. This leather isn't typical of "bookbinding leather" really...and by that i mean it probably isn't the best for hardcover full-leather casebound books; however, these hides work really well for my limp leather journals.

7 comments:

Jennifer said...

Have you tried thrift store sales for leather jackets? When I was making booties for my daughter, I found several suede skirts for $2 each. I made lots of booties but still have plenty left over for journals (which I'm inspired to try now that I saw your last post).

Just an idea. I also bought some small leather purses at a thrift store sale to use for accent colors; more appropriate for baby shoes than most journals, I suppose. I was thinking the tie might be kind of fun to do in a different color leather.

Thank you for your inspiring work.

MyHandboundBooks said...

hi Jennifer, yes, i've done that too! when i first decided that i wanted to try making some leather books, i had no idea how to buy leather. So i purchased used leather clothing, and i found skirts were usually the best - not as much lining and interface material compared to coats.

Now I am using new leather almost exclusively - but i would like to do some more "upcycling" with used leather clothing soon - there are usually some great leather colours available in jackets and skirts!

BWK Art said...

I know the feeling, Rhonda. At least I'm starting to know. heh! The gal at the post office must be wondering what I'm using all this leather for. ;) I really like Wholesale Leather's quality of hides. Really nice. (Thank you for recommending them to me.) And their shipping is amazingly reasonable!

TJBookarts said...

I love the smell of new leather. :)

maiko said...

LEATHER!

i still need to use the leather i have from two coats that i bought... but... now i want more!

Kaija said...

Oh my, I just realized I was raised a bookbinding leather snob. I got used to those lovely Harmatan leathers while still studying and now I can't afford it. So I'm not making hardly any leather bindings. I need to go to rehab...

Wholesale Leather Hides said...

Wholesale Leather Hides for all and every kind of leather in reasonable price or at whole sale rate. just check out once.

Wholesale Leather Hides