Help with my new hobby

[GaryC 7]

A long time ago I was into leather working, you know, carving designs into handbags, wallets and belts. A few weeks ago I found a Tandy store and decided to pick the hobby back up. I have done several projects for Luz and Robin and for my latest one Luz wants some fancy lettering on it. My skills at calligraphy are very limited but if I had some patterns I could transfer them to the leather for carving. Anyone have some stencils or outlines for fancy cursive lettering? I need them to be about 2" tall.

Here are some of the things I have made so far:

[R de la R 2]

Nice work, I liked them.

[caybee 21]

Nice work, I liked them.

I agree, very nice and unusual. It caught hubby's eye too when he glanced over. Sorry I don't have any letters to offer.

[Kathryn41 3,205]

What about making your own stencils, Gary? Use your word processing software. It gives you the options of a variety of fonts. Scroll through them until you find the one you like, then you can enlarge it by increasing the point size until it appears the size you want. You may have to print it out and enlarge it on a photocopier if you can't quite get it to the size you want on the computer (around 144 point plus depending on font type), but you should be able to print out what you want and then using an exacto-knife, cut out the interior of the letter to give you your own stencil. You can also use a piece of carbon paper between the printed out letter and the leather and then go over it with a sharp point transferring the design via the carbon paper unto the leather.

Hope this helps - you do nice work.

Good luck

[Dr. A ♥ O 203]

Those are gorgeous.

Try searching design websites for various fonts or letters. Sometimes they have an awesome amount of stencils for all kinds of letters you could want!

Edited May 18, 2008 by Olivia*

[john & jean 37]

Talented, obviously!

[GaryC 7]

Thanks for all the complements. Luz really loves the bags. It works great for both of us, I have a hobby of making leather goods and she has a hobby of collecting handbags.

What I had in mind is a very fancy style of lettering. Something like the way John Hancock signed his name. But it needs to be thick enough for me to color in the letter. I have been doing some searching with no luck so far.

[spidergirl 0]

Good job Gary i like it If you want some unsual fancy fonts you can download it in this website http://www.1001freefonts.com/ or just use your google toolbar and type Downloadable Fonts. After you download you paste it on your PC (mycomputer/C:/windows/Fonts). Most of it are in zip format , unzip it before pasting. Then follow what Kathryn41 said.

I have a sample for you

[HAL 9000 96]

Wow Gary very nice.

Do you do hats in leather? (Bushmaster/fedora type)

[o0pink0o 3]

WOW! those are beautiful ,. i like the handbag

PiNk

[Sister Fracas 5]

ooooh! NICE.... gonna sell them to us??????

[warriorprincess 0]

Wow, those are really good. Sorry but I don't know much about calligraphy.

[GaryC 7]

Good job Gary i like it If you want some unsual fancy fonts you can download it in this website http://www.1001freefonts.com/ or just use your google toolbar and type Downloadable Fonts. After you download you paste it on your PC (mycomputer/C:/windows/Fonts). Most of it are in zip format , unzip it before pasting. Then follow what Kathryn41 said.

I have a sample for you

There you go!!! Thats it!! I will give this one a shot. Thank you!!!!!

Edited May 18, 2008 by GaryC

[Sister Fracas 5]

There is an online site called Stencil Ease, where you can buy lettering sets in all different styles and you can get different sizes. They don't seem to be too expensive if you just wanted a couple of sets, and it probably depends on the style.

Edited May 18, 2008 by Sister Fracas

[Mina76 0]

Nice, if you ever decide to sell your handbags online post your website on here