Found & Kept – a leather collection for La Grange Park, Illinois

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of place-rooted leather stamping studies.

An August study.

La Grange Park, Illinois grew from five farms, and for years its neighbors called it simply the Park. The village still runs on the old habits of keeping things and making room, so this August we cut Found & Kept, a small leather collection about the moment a thing stops being lost.

First, the keeper's mark that names the collection. FOUND stands arched over an old printer's pointing hand, and beneath the finger, HERE – the word every good find hears at last.

The Found Here stamp design from the Found & Kept leather collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

We pressed it on a trio of luggage tags, deep green and warm honey tan with a black third. The black tag carries the mark in gold. Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

Black, forest green and caramel leather luggage tags stamped Found Here, from the Found & Kept collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

Nothing in a house is lost and found more often than a key, so the keychains take the same stamp – one in chestnut, one in pale sea-blue, like old paint on a rescued chair.

Sicilian brown and turquoise leather keychains stamped Found Here, from the Found & Kept collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

Next, Five Farms. Between 1845 and 1860, five farm families settled the ground that became the village, so we drew a surveyor's square cut into five fields with a small emblem standing in each – FIVE FARMS above the plat, ONE PARK below it.

The Five Farms stamp design from the Found & Kept leather collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

Pressed at generous size into the golden tan catchall tray, the plat sits at the bottom of the place where found things land. It looks genuinely beautiful.

A golden tan leather catchall tray stamped Five Farms, from the Found & Kept collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

Then the toiletry bags, stacked honeyed russet over deep espresso like prairie straw over farm soil, with the plat pressed small in the corner.

Russet and espresso leather toiletry bags stamped Five Farms, from the Found & Kept collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

And finally, Salt Creek, the water that keeps the village's wooded edge. The creek writes its own name and keeps going – the line leaves the last letter and wanders through its mapped bends, ending in a stand of rushes.

The Salt Creek stamp design from the Found & Kept leather collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

On the journals the stamp sits low in the corner, so every page opens above a line already begun. One navy for the water, one pale warm greige for the bank. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

Blueberry and gray sand leather journals stamped Salt Creek, from the Found & Kept collection for La Grange Park, Illinois.

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.