First Signs, Volume II – a leather stamping collection of early birds and first blooms

From the Shops Waterfall – Volume II, a fifth independent study of original designs.

A September study.

First Signs is a small collection about the year's earliest arrivals, and about the people who notice them. Each design presses one early sign of the season into the leather object whose daily habit matches it.

First, the eastern phoebe, among the first birds home each spring and faithful to the same nest site it left in the fall. We perched it on a budding branch above FIRST ONE BACK and gave it the luggage tags – the one object in the house that also leaves and comes home on schedule.

Black-and-white die artwork of an Eastern Phoebe on a budding branch above FIRST ONE BACK for the First Signs leather collection, Volume II.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather. The black tag carries the design in gold – first light on the first one back.

A black leather luggage tag gold-stamped with an Eastern Phoebe and FIRST ONE BACK in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

Pale warm greige takes the late-winter sky; deep green takes the woods it comes home to.

A pale warm gray-sand leather luggage tag blind-stamped with an Eastern Phoebe and FIRST ONE BACK in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

A forest-green leather luggage tag blind-stamped with an Eastern Phoebe and FIRST ONE BACK in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

Next, the white-breasted nuthatch, the one feeder regular that works down the trunk head first. A keychain spends its whole life hanging, so it gets the bird that prefers it that way – the bill pointing straight at HEAD FIRST.

Black-and-white die artwork of a head-down White-breasted Nuthatch above HEAD FIRST for the First Signs leather collection, Volume II.

It looks genuinely beautiful, in chestnut and in warm mid-gray.

A Sicilian-brown leather keychain blind-stamped with a head-down White-breasted Nuthatch and HEAD FIRST in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

A country-gray leather keychain blind-stamped with a head-down White-breasted Nuthatch and HEAD FIRST in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

Then the toiletry bag, the one that gets packed the night before. Skunk cabbage comes up while the water is still iced over, ahead of everything else in the woods – we pressed its hooded spathe, ringed by the ripples it breaks, small into the lower corner over FIRST UP. A navy bag on a deep espresso base: cold water over wet ground.

Black-and-white die artwork of an emerging skunk-cabbage spathe above FIRST UP for the First Signs leather collection, Volume II.

Looks great pressed small into the corner.

Blueberry and dark-espresso leather toiletry bags blind-stamped with an emerging skunk-cabbage spathe and FIRST UP in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

Then the catchall tray. A tufted titmouse takes one seed from the feeder and flies off to open it, then returns for the next – which is also the only way anything ever leaves a tray by the door. ONE SEED AT A TIME, under the bird with its seed.

Black-and-white die artwork of a Tufted Titmouse carrying a seed above ONE SEED AT A TIME for the First Signs leather collection, Volume II.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the golden tan tray.

An Arizona golden-tan leather catchall tray blind-stamped with a Tufted Titmouse, seed, and ONE SEED AT A TIME in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

And finally, the one we liked the most. Round-lobed hepatica opens low among last year's pine needles, and the day it opens is the day it gets written down. Two flowers over FIRST OF THE YEAR, in the lower corner of the journal where that entry belongs.

Black-and-white die artwork of two hepatica flowers above FIRST OF THE YEAR for the First Signs leather collection, Volume II.

One journal in dusty lavender – the flower's own color – and one in deep green.

A dusty-lilac leather journal blind-stamped with two hepatica flowers and FIRST OF THE YEAR in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

A forest-green leather journal blind-stamped with two hepatica flowers and FIRST OF THE YEAR in the First Signs collection, Volume II.

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.