Leather Bean Bag Paper Weights
We've done a few great projects for Kathryn, at Aspen Midstream, an oil and gas company in the DFW area.
They were having issues looking at documents, plans, and blueprints out in the field - they needed a way to keep them from blowing all around while outside. So, Kathryn commissioned us to create these weighted leather bean bags.
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We started with some really nice, full grain Wickett & Craig skirting leather in Russett. This stuff comes in thick hides, so we had to split it down to a top-grain at about 3.5oz. Kathryn provided the corporate logo for Aspen, so we loaded it up into our design software and engraved a whole sheet off them. Next we cut out the rectangles for the front and back sides. |
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We'll probably do a video on this process in the future, but we made these rectangles a bit wider than we needed, so that we could glue 3 sides of them together and let it dry. Once dry, we opened them up like a legal envelope, filled them with a few ounces of bb's and glued the top seam. We used little clips to hold the opening shut until the glue dried. |
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You might notice in some of the other photos that our "before" pictures are bigger than these - thats because we decided to give them even more room around the edges, so we could stitch them up properly. Doing it as pictured was a little tight on space.
Adding these extra "margins" gave us plenty of room for glue and plenty of room for our presser foot while stitching. Made for a more secure bag that was a lot less likely to burst open (if someone decided to use them for desktop Cornhole or something).... |
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We stitched them on the inside seam (marked the stitch line with the laser) and trimmed off the outer margin (another line we created with the laser). This leaves us with an even seam and perfect edges that are glued all the way to the edge without having any "seepage" over the edge (because we cut off the edges). |
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Here's a finished batch of 10 weighted leather bean bags (or paper weights - whatever you want to call them). These have a nice "heft" to them and do a great job of holding down papers in the wind. I keep a couple around the shop and use them all the time. |
| Here, you can see the back sides - no logos. Just nice, clean Wickett and Craig leather. These bags are super easy to make and don't "require" a logo if you just want to use them around the shop, craft room, garage, or whatever work area you might have. |  |
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Another view of the finished leather weight bags - getting them ready for delivery. |
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.... and the back sides again. Gotta have those good shots for the InterWebs!!
Thanks for reading up on these - it was a great project and we hope do do more for Aspen, again, in the future.
Thanks, Kathryn! |
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