RubyPaws

My husband and I walked into Tandy Leather one day and bought a leather kit. After letting it sit around for several months, we finally oped the kit, messed around with it a bit and viola!

I have always loved dogs for as long as I can remember, and have always been the artsy type. I have always owned, loved, trained, worked with dogs, pretty much anything having to do with dogs, I was doing it or talking about it. Even in old family videos I was drawing dogs on my etch-a-sketch, crawling around and barking, playing with my millions of dog stuffed animals. In high school, my teacher actually "banned" me from doing any art pieces with dogs because that's pretty much all I would draw or put in my art! My final art show in college was, one guess, DOGS! I painted, drew and had a digital piece of several different dog portraits and won several awards for them.

Needless to say, dogs are my inspiration for my leather collars. Having two unique dogs, I had always been looking for the PERFECT collar for them. My rescued lab mix, Parker, is a black dog with piercing, ice blue eyes. Her collar needed to be something as unique as she was. My other dog Summit is a saluki, a very ancient and gorgeous breed of dog. Same for him, I was looking for a stunning collar one that would catch people eye's as he so often did. After a lot of thinking and designing, I finally came up with the PERFECT collar for both.

That's what I am hoping to accomplish with my shop, help dedicated dog owner's and lovers like myself, find the PERFECT collar for their dogs. Each collar is lovingly hand made. I start out with a huge piece of veg tanned leather and begin the design process. Once I decide what shape for the collar and decide on measurements, and math (this is where my wonderful husband so patiently helps me), I cut out what I need. I then transfer the finalized design to tracing film, which I then lay over the leather so I can transfer the image. Once the design has been imprinted on the leather I start cutting out the design so I can then hand carve it, giving it the relief needed to make it more 3D. Once the design is carved and the background is stamped, I will hand paint the leather to make the design pop even more. Once the dye is completely dry, I apply several coats of finish that helps give the collars shine and gives them a water resistant coating. I then set all the rivets and assemble the collar. Depending on the difficulty of the design, making a collar can take anywhere from a few hours to several days to complete.

But even with all this hard work and effort, nothing compares to a happy client who is beyond ecstatic when they receive one of my collars and sends me pictures with their beloved pet modelling their new piece of art! They finally have their own PERFECT collar, the same feeling I had when I made my dogs their own PERFECT collars!