Leather flowers, part two: necklace

Leather crafts, continued. Among Grandma’s things, lying folded amidst the yards of eyelet and flannel and poinsettia print quilting cotton, there was a big buckskin, soft and floppy, tagged by the preparer, bullet holes still apparent. I don’t know where she got it, but Grandma was an old school country girl, and also a crack shot, and she saved anything that might come in handy in the event of a craft inspiration. I’ll never know what she had in mind for the buckskin--I am imagining something fringed and hand-tooled--but I thought of flowers. These are pretty easy: cut out two flower-ish shapes, poke a couple holes in them with a nail, run a length of leather lacing through the holes, tying them together. I put the knots in the front. Get the whole thing wet, and then scrunch and squeeze and stretch it, pulling and twisting the petals, until it looks sufficiently flowery. The softer your leather is, the better it will sculpt. Prop it in a little glass to help it keep its shape, and let it dry completely. Then use your crafty skills to finagle it into a necklace, or whatever else you like. A lovely tutorial is here.