Around the Square – a Waxahachie, Texas leather collection

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

An August study.

Waxahachie keeps its whole heart within one block of pink granite, and we spent this study pressing the town into leather. Five original stamps make one small collection, Around the Square – carried across everything from luggage tags to a catchall tray.

First, the stamp that names the collection. We set the courthouse clock tower inside a square border and traced a dotted walking loop around it, the way the whole town walks it – AROUND THE SQUARE arched over the turret, WAXAHACHIE beneath.

The Around the Square black-and-white leather stamp design from the Waxahachie, Texas collection.

We pressed it on a trio of luggage tags – true black, warm tan and a pale sea-blue. The black tag carries the gold. It looks genuinely beautiful.

Black, warm tan and pale sea-blue leather luggage tags carry the Around the Square courthouse design from Waxahachie, Texas.

Next, Gingerbread Weather – the bright kind of afternoon that sends everyone out to walk past the carved Victorian porches. We built a steep gable edged in carpenter's fretwork, filled its peak with a sunburst of spindles, and hung the phrase beneath the roof.

The Gingerbread Weather gable artwork prepared as a leather stamp for the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

A journal wants a porch and a free hour, so this one went to the journals – one in warm gray, one in dusty rose, the color of crape myrtle in July. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

Warm gray and dusty rose leather journals wear the Gingerbread Weather stamp from the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

Then the 1902 Chautauqua Auditorium, the last known original Chautauqua building standing in Texas. We drew it the way only the swallows ever see it – from straight above, eight roof panels turning like a pinwheel around the cupola.

The Octagon Chautauqua roof artwork prepared as a leather stamp for the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

Keychains, in golden tan and deep green. The little roof reads perfectly at fob size.

Golden tan and deep green leather keychains carry The Octagon stamp from the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

The blackland prairie got the toiletry bags. An open cotton boll rises out of the plowed furrows – the white harvest that raised this county – over the words BLACKLAND BLOOM. We stacked the bags warm tan over deep espresso brown, sun over soil.

The Blackland Bloom cotton artwork prepared as a leather stamp for the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

Warm tan and deep espresso leather toiletry bags carry the Blackland Bloom stamp from the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

And finally, the golden tan catchall tray: one arrow making its lap around a small solid square. Keys land here in the evening, and the stamp argues for one more turn tomorrow.

The One More Turn circular artwork prepared as a leather stamp for the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

A golden tan leather catchall tray carries the One More Turn stamp from the Around the Square collection of Waxahachie, Texas.

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 these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.