AS IT HAPPENS – Alliance, Nebraska leather

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies. This one is a portrait of a place.

An August study.

For Alliance, Nebraska.

First, the town in one emblem. Two rails run dead straight for the horizon through the grass-covered dunes, ALLIANCE overhead and NEBRASKA underfoot. We pressed it on golden tan for the sunlit grass and on navy for the sky. A warm stone gray sits between them.

It looks genuinely beautiful.

Three leather luggage tags in golden tan, navy and warm stone gray stamped with railroad tracks crossing the Sandhills, from the AS IT HAPPENS collection of Alliance, Nebraska.

Next, the joke the whole country knows and only one town owns. Two sedans stand planted nose-down with a third laid across their tailfins, ringed the way a civic seal would do it.

Black and white Carhenge stamp artwork created for the AS IT HAPPENS leather collection of Alliance, Nebraska.

On the keychains, in stone gray and in black, it looks just awesome.

Two leather keychains in warm stone gray and black stamped with the Carhenge monument, from the AS IT HAPPENS collection of Alliance, Nebraska.

Then, in the corner of the toiletry bags, a single cottonwood leaned over by the west wind that never quite stops. The stack is honeyed russet over deep espresso brown – autumn grass over railroad iron.

Honeyed russet and deep espresso leather toiletry bags stamped with a wind-shaped cottonwood, from the AS IT HAPPENS collection of Alliance, Nebraska.

The catchall tray carries the Central Park fountain at full size – the landmark the town made for itself in the lean years. A tray collects whatever the day brings in; that job belonged to the fountain.

Black and white Central Park fountain stamp artwork created for the AS IT HAPPENS leather collection of Alliance, Nebraska.

A golden tan leather catchall tray stamped with the Central Park fountain, from the AS IT HAPPENS collection of Alliance, Nebraska.

And finally, the one that names the collection. AS IT HAPPENS, set like old metal type between column rules – because a town this size writes its own history down the week it occurs, and a journal is where that habit lives. One cover is pale greige, like newsprint; on the black one the press reads as pure shadow.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

Pale greige and black leather wrap journals stamped AS IT HAPPENS in old metal type, from the Alliance, Nebraska collection.

We made this out of love. We are 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're from Alliance and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.