One More Chapter – an Oak Cliff leather collection

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

An August study.

We call this collection One More Chapter. It is leather rooted in Oak Cliff – the porch and bookshelf blocks around Eighth Street, across the river from downtown Dallas – journals and luggage tags stamped for nights that run a chapter long.

First, the place itself. We spaced out OAK CLIFF and drew its underline as streetcar track – two rails with their cross-ties – and set a small trolley riding the end of the sentence, the way the old line once ran through the neighborhood. The design lies lengthwise along the luggage tags, in golden tan and deep green. The true black tag carries it in gold foil.

The Oak Cliff Line stamp design pairs neighborhood lettering with a streetcar track for the One More Chapter leather collection of Oak Cliff.

Three leather luggage tags carry the Oak Cliff streetcar design from the One More Chapter collection of Oak Cliff.

Next, the phrase the whole collection is named for. We stacked ONE MORE CHAPTER into a tight block, like pages seen from the fore-edge, and slipped a ribbon bookmark down its side – folded over the top, swallowtail at the bottom, holding the reader's place inside the words. On the journals it sits in the lower corner: deep wine for after dark, pale greige like the morning page.

Looks absolutely gorgeous when stamped onto the leather.

The One More Chapter stamp design stacks a reader's promise beside a ribbon bookmark for an Oak Cliff leather collection.

Two leather journals are stamped with One More Chapter and a ribbon bookmark from the Oak Cliff collection.

The same stamp goes big on the golden tan catchall tray – the dish by the door where keys and glasses land at the end of the night, while the day still owes you one more chapter.

A golden tan leather catchall tray is stamped with One More Chapter from the Oak Cliff collection.

Then the keychains. A bare bulb hangs on its cord at the center of a ring, with two moths already in orbit. Around the ring we wrote THE PORCH LIGHT IS ON – a key should have somewhere warm to come home to. On the true black fob the light is pressed in gold foil, so it is actually on.

The Porch Light stamp design circles a hanging bulb and moths for the One More Chapter leather collection of Oak Cliff.

Two leather keychains carry the Porch Light Is On design from the One More Chapter collection of Oak Cliff.

And finally, the weekend bag. We rebuilt the signal mark with an open book where the dot goes and wrote OFFLINE beneath it – full bars from the story, whatever the phone thinks. It presses into the corner of the toiletry kit, warm tan over deep espresso.

The Offline stamp design turns a book into a signal mark for the One More Chapter leather collection of Oak Cliff.

Two leather toiletry bags are blind stamped with the Offline book signal from the One More Chapter collection of Oak Cliff.

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're in Oak Cliff and you'd like these made real, or anything here changed – say hello through our contact page.