Worth Keeping – a leather stamping collection for kept objects (Shops Waterfall, Volume I-C)

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

A September study – Shops Waterfall, Volume I-C.

Worth Keeping is a small collection for the objects that earn their place – the thing someone chose on purpose, and the thing a hand has carried for years. Three stamps follow that life.

First, the paper tag. In a room of found and handmade things, the good ones wear a little card tied on with string, so we drew that card and let it say what every one of them is quietly claiming – WORTH KEEPING. On a luggage tag it runs the full length, and the joke holds: a tag vouching for the bag it hangs from.

The black tag carries the gold; the pale sea-blue and warm caramel tags take a blind press.

The Worth Keeping swing-tag die from the Worth Keeping leather stamping study.

A black leather luggage tag stamped Worth Keeping in gold foil.

A pale sea-blue leather luggage tag blind-stamped Worth Keeping.

A warm caramel leather luggage tag blind-stamped Worth Keeping.

Next, the pocket stone. A stone comes out of a river or a coat pocket smoother than it went in, and its banding is the record of that patience. We drew one imperfect oval with four pale bands flowing through it, and set CARRIED SMOOTH underneath. A keychain is the most carried object a person owns, so that is where the stone lives – once in pale greige, like the stone itself, and once in deep espresso. Looks great when stamped onto the leather.

The Carried Smooth banded-stone die from the Worth Keeping leather stamping study.

A pale greige leather keychain blind-stamped Carried Smooth.

A dark espresso leather keychain blind-stamped Carried Smooth.

Then the same stone rides the toiletry bags, pressed small in the corner the way a stone rides a pocket – a honeyed russet bag over a deep espresso one.

Indian-summer and dark espresso leather toiletry bags blind-stamped Carried Smooth.

And finally, GATHERED. Half the objects in a room of kept things began as a walk that ended with something in your hand. We pressed a small fern and two grass stems flat, the way a found sprig gets pressed between the pages of a book, and set the one word beneath them. It sits low in the corner of the journals – a book being exactly where gathered things end up pressed and written down – once in deep green and once in deep wine. It looks genuinely beautiful.

The Gathered pressed-sprig die from the Worth Keeping leather stamping study.

A forest-green leather journal blind-stamped Gathered.

A sangria leather journal blind-stamped Gathered.

The golden tan tray takes the same sprig at generous size, and waits under whatever the day brings home.

An arizona leather catchall tray blind-stamped Gathered.

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.

P.S.

A second black leather luggage-tag render stamped Worth Keeping in gold foil.

A second pale sea-blue leather luggage-tag render blind-stamped Worth Keeping.

A second warm caramel leather luggage-tag render blind-stamped Worth Keeping.

A second render of indian-summer and dark espresso toiletry bags blind-stamped Carried Smooth.