A full week of working went into this belt.

Tomorrow we are meeting up with family for a 5 day visit.  Not here at the homestead but at a rented house in KC.  Too many scorpions, snakes and other dangers for little ones here and not much to do for them.  The nearest small town is 15 miles away and the next biggest which at least does have a cinema and swimming pool is 35 miles away.

Well, a couple of years ago, (or more) we promised to make the daughter in law a leather belt.  She is a California girl and not into country stuff so our usual style wouldn't be anything she would like.  So we asked for idea and she sent us a photo of their dog's collar which someone had tooled for it and she quite liked the look of it.  She also wanted it to be as wide as possible and just able to get into belt loops.

It would involve using various colours and painting and wasn't anything I wanted to attempt.

So we conveniently, sorta, kinda accidentally on purpose forgot about it.  Conscious got the better of my husband though and he said we really have to make the belt.  So on Monday past we started on it.

He cut the leather belt from a leather belly we had bought.  Then I tooled on a pattern, bigger patterns than on the sample.

We knew that we couldn't do the painting on top of the staining as the work is way too fine for us to do so my husband came up with a different idea.  Fine point sharpie pens instead of painting but the colouring would have to be done before the staining doing it this way.  Thank goodness for Amazon overnight shipping!

So we set about colouring the stampings, he started and gave me some ideas then I did the rest.  It took me a whole day.  Then he said that he didn't think he could stain round all the patterns without 'splodging' it.  Leather stain is very runny and lethal.  It can not be removed so no room for mistakes. So he came up with the idea of putting an 'aura' around each pattern which had a smoother edge so it would be easier to stain up to it.  I did that part too.

Then it was over to my husband to do the most difficult part, to stain the belt.  I could never have done it, it would have been a disaster, I get the dye everywhere.  He did an absolutely magnificent job.

Next was the conditioning of the leather, he started on it and made it nice and soft and then I did the gumtraging of the edges and back.

After that more conditioning then shining and polishing.

We are really impressed with ourselves.  No intention of ever making another like it but really feeling quite accomplished that we did it........finally!

We did not have a buckle that size so we can go with her to Tandy in KC and she can chose a buckle. Then we can put the holes where she wants them to be.  She wears her jeans on her hips so better to wait and see where she wants them.  I have the tools packed to take with us to finish it.

I will get a photo of the finished belt and post it after our visit with them.