5 Great Christmas Gifts Ideas Under $50! Start your shopping early!

We know it is not yet Thanksgiving and we are not trying to rush the holidays, but taking some steps for a bit of advance planning will allow you to relax more and really enjoy the Christmas season once it officially starts. We have come up with just a little selection from the many custom and unique options of our creations for bags, electronics, housewares, wearables and more.

Belt Buckle.

1. We guarantee you have not seen belt buckles as unique and personal as ours. We have a variety of patterns and shapes available, all in our high quality hand dyed and tooled leather and metal finishes.
2. We have a great selection of watches and straps that vary with round silver or square brushed pewter watch faces, and options of narrow or wide cuffs, wrap, or skinny strap bands.
3. You will make a lot of people happy with our great selection of small wallets. We have coin wallets, bi-fold and tri-fold, passport wallets, and checkbook cases and more to choose from. Again, all are created with our unique tooling and dye process, with high quality stitching and closure options for those on your Christmas list.
4. For the musician on your list, our cool guitar hangers are sure to please. We have some great patterns from wood grain to poppy and bee patterns for a unique and safe way to hang and store a guitar when not in use.
5. Those on your list with iPads will love our wide variety of custom iPad cases. We have some great patterns and colors all from flexible, lightweight leather with silicone inserts to protect your tablet.  No worries if you have other tablets such as Samsung or Dell. Contact us with your specifications and we can create a unique tablet case exactly to your specifications.

Bee Patterns iPad Case.

Check out our leather craft kits for the creative one on your list.  Please let us know about any custom ideas you have and we will come up with a final product exactly to your needs. All the beautiful and tooling, dyes and protective finishes on our products are of the highest quality to insure years of use and beauty.  

Call it what you want

 

It’s been a crazy week. My daughter went back to school (last year of her immersion Preschool!) and my son started spending full days with my mother and step-mother.  It’s wild to be in my studio without him, but I have to admit that I get a lot more done.  Oh yeah, also, Moxie & Oliver is a Martha Stewart American Made Finalist! I honestly almost cried when I saw the email.  We made it on the wildcard which means, and this may be even more incredible than being chosen by Martha, that my friends, family and fans shared the page enough to get us there.  Amazing.

Something else happened, too, that I don’t want to overlook.  I started calling myself an “artist”.  I have been up to my ears in applications and the more I write about my own work, the more I think about it, and the more I realize that what sets my work apart from other leather goods is that it has art on it.  How’d that art get there?  Well, I guess an artist must have… oh wait, yeah. I guess I’m an artist.

This may seem completely obvious to everyone else, but it wasn’t to me.  For as long as I have been working with leather I have been creating goods that are functional – bags, wallets, belts, mailboxes, pillows -  and for that reason alone I put myself in the category of “crafter.”  The division of “arts’' and “crafts” came about in the Renaissance, and in addition to industrialization of crafts, this was something that the Arts & Crafts Movement sought to undo. As a lover of the arts and virtues of the Arts & Crafts Movement, I’m not sure how I wandered so far from their teachings when it came to my own work.

So today, at a party, someone asked what I do and I said “I’m an artist.”  My husband says that this always makes people think I don’t make any money, which is fine. The other thing I’ve been asking myself recently is whether I would rather make a lot of money or make a difference in the world.  I’d rather make a difference, and by making leathergoods that have my original art on them for people to enjoy, I believe I do.  And that they will last for years and years to come helps everyone – your pocket, the resources of the world, you know, small stuff.  And I hope to further this world betterment by teaching others my craft, but that’s news for another day. 

xo

c