Grown Sharp, Worn Round – a leather stamping study of Maine tourmaline and Mount Desert Island's beach stones

From the Practice Log – an ongoing series of stamping studies. Volume I-A.

A September study.

Maine's state mineral grows sharp in pegmatite pockets far inland, and the Atlantic spends its storms rounding granite along the shores of Mount Desert Island. Grown Sharp, Worn Round is a small leather collection pressed from both stories – the crystal and the cobble, each keeping the shape its history gave it.

First, we drew a Maine tourmaline the way collectors keep it – the long striated pencil with its rounded-triangle shoulders and a rough faceted crown – and laid it lengthwise along the luggage tag beside MOUNT MICA 1820, the inland hillside where Maine tourmaline first came to light.

Black-and-white Mount Mica tourmaline pencil stamp artwork for luggage tags in Grown Sharp, Worn Round.

Looks great when stamped onto the leather. The black tag carries the gold; deep green and dusty rose carry the crystal as a blind deboss.

A black leather luggage tag stamped in gold with a horizontal tourmaline crystal and MOUNT MICA 1820.

A forest-green leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a horizontal tourmaline crystal and MOUNT MICA 1820.

A dusty-rose leather luggage tag blind-stamped with a horizontal tourmaline crystal and MOUNT MICA 1820.

Next, the journals. A cut across any tourmaline pencil shows a rounded triangle with rings of color grown one inside the other, so we pressed that section into the lower corner and named it in the collector's own word: ELBAITE.

Black-and-white rounded-triangle elbaite section stamp artwork for leather journals.

One cover wears the rim's deep green, the other the core's pale rose – a watermelon crystal, split between two journals.

A forest-green leather journal blind-stamped with nested elbaite growth rings and ELBAITE.

A blush leather journal blind-stamped with nested elbaite growth rings and ELBAITE.

Then we cut a small mark for the toiletry bags – the striated section carried inside the outline of a beach cobble, MAINE beneath – the sharp thing riding home inside the worn one. We pressed it low in the corner of the granite-gray and chestnut stack.

Black-and-white crystal-inside-cobble stamp artwork with MAINE for leather toiletry bags.

Country-gray and chestnut leather toiletry bags blind-stamped with a Maine crystal inside a cobble.

For the keychains, we chose a single cobble, solid black with the sea's wear drawn through it in white, and gave it the two words the island writes on every stone it keeps: WORN ROUND.

Black-and-white wave-worn cobble stamp artwork with WORN ROUND for leather keychains.

It looks genuinely beautiful – in pale gray sand and in deep navy.

A pale gray-sand leather keychain blind-stamped with a wave-worn cobble and WORN ROUND.

A deep-blue leather keychain blind-stamped with a wave-worn cobble and WORN ROUND.

And finally, the one we liked the most. Across the golden tan catchall tray, a granite block gives up its corners stone by stone – sharp at one end, worn round at the other – beneath the words THE SEA TAKES ITS TIME. A tray is where a day's pocketful settles; it seemed right to hand it the patient sentence.

Black-and-white four-stone rounding sequence stamp artwork with THE SEA TAKES ITS TIME.

A golden-tan leather catchall tray blind-stamped with four stones rounding beneath THE SEA TAKES ITS TIME.

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