City of Trees – a Midtown Sacramento leather collection

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies on real-world places.

An August study.

Five original stamps for Sacramento, pressed into leather – a small collection we call City of Trees. We started at the rivers and worked our way inland.

First, the confluence. We let the American meet the Sacramento halfway along the tag – TWO RIVERS over the paired lines, ONE CITY under the single line they become. The trio shades from navy through pale sea-blue to a river-sand greige.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Three leather luggage tags carry the TWO RIVERS ONE CITY confluence design from the City of Trees collection of Sacramento, California.

Next, we drew the Tower Bridge down to its proudest lines – twin lattice towers with the lift span between them, and SACRAMENTO beneath.

The bridge is painted gold, so the black fob carries real gold foil; the golden-tan fob takes a blind deboss.

Black and golden tan leather keychains carry the Tower Bridge design from the City of Trees collection of Sacramento, California.

Then, Midtown itself. A little square of the grid with one crossing pinned – MEET ME IN MIDTOWN. We stamped it small in the lower corner of each bag, honeyed russet over chestnut, the colors of the old brick.

Two leather toiletry bags carry the MEET ME IN MIDTOWN street-grid design from the City of Trees collection of Sacramento, California.

For the catchall, where the small gold things land at the end of the day, we drew a California poppy like a plate from an old flora – one bloom and one bud, with the Latin beneath, pressed into the golden-tan tray.

A golden tan leather catchall tray carries a California poppy design from the City of Trees collection of Sacramento, California.

And finally, the one that names the collection. A tree lays down one ring a year, and the rings add up to a trunk – the same arithmetic as any good habit. CITY OF TREES arcs over the rings in the corner of each journal, deep green and warm tan.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Forest green and warm tan leather journals carry the growth-ring design from the City of Trees collection of Sacramento, California.

We made this out of love. Leatherius Woodman is on a mission to create and share artifacts of beauty, craft and love – this study is one of them, and we hope the feeling is mutual. Every image is a render – how we prototype before cutting a die.

If you'd like any of these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.