Big Dreams, Bigger Projects

What AI Imagines these projects looks like on the bench...

The shop is hopping this week, and I’ve got a few irons in the fire.

First up is a new Mandala Bag for Kiersten in Germany. It’s a custom roundbag with a rainbow mandala on turquoise leather. I’ve cut all the pieces and just started tooling the main mandala for the back. This is my comfort zone, a project I know I can execute well, and it feels good to settle into that rhythm.

Then there’s The Big Book.And when I say big, I mean huge. This is a custom hand-bound book that will measure 20 by 15 inches and hold about 200 pages. The family who commissioned it plans to use it as a generational record, sketching and documenting all the flora and fauna on their property for years to come.

When I first heard “20x15,” I thought, “Yeah, that’s a big book.” But I didn’t truly get it until I ordered the paper. Thirty sheets arrived in this massive shipping box, and when I opened it, I just laughed. “HOLY SHIT, this thing is going to be huge!”

Now I’m deep in the design stage, planning a fully tooled cover with seamless Gaelic and Buddhist symbolism, and thinking through what it will mean to bind 200 pages at this scale. It’s a challenge, but the kind of challenge that makes me excited to walk into the shop.

And between all that, I’m finalizing the VitriCycle content and prepping for my September leather class. Life in the shop is busy, but it’s the kind of busy that makes me grateful for coffee and creative chaos.

So that’s my bench this week, comfort projects, learning projects, and a little bit of “what did I just get myself into?”