What leather Should I choose?
Sometimes, we know exactly what we want…..but sometimes, finding the perfect material is what gives us the inspiration! Here at WizardKits Artistry, we get our materials from a variety of sources. Below are some non-affliliate links to some of our favorite sources, which you can browse at your convenience to see if one of them has that perfect color, texture or inspiration for you.
Garment-WEight Leather
A garment-weight leather has all the luxurious feel of leather, but behaves more like a heavy fabric. Corsets made from these lightweight leathers will be reinforced with canvas or coutil lining, and heavily boned with steel.
The biggest pro of lightweight leathers is that they come in pretty much every color, texture and style you can imagine. The biggest con is that they are typically sold in smaller pieces, so it may take several pieces to create your corset.
Distant Drums Leather
We love shopping here! Why? Because their prices are reasonable, their quality is reliable, and their shipping is the fastest we’ve ever seen. We love the crackly, weathered look of their tanning process. Also - these skins do take dye well, so a light purple can become indigo, or a bright red can become burgundy. This is our go-to and if they have it, we will always buy here first.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/DistantDrumsLeather?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=839183140
PeggySueAlso
We come to this shop for the colorful and the unique. Rainbow, neon, metallic - type your inspiration into their search bar, and chances are that something beautiful will come up.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/PeggySueAlso?ref=simple-shop-header-name&listing_id=696327170
Frog Jelly Leather
A larger supplier, you can get a little bit of everything here!
Armor-WEight and Vegetable Tan Leather
First of all, let’s clarify: vegetable-tan leather refers to a specific tanning process. It doesn’t mean the leather is made from vegan materials (alas!). We would love to offer ethical vegan leather options in the future that are made from biodegradable practices. Right now, the most available vegan leather alternatives are pleathers or vinyl - essentially, plastic that looks like leather. We can work with those materials at your request, but we would love to find more earth-friendly leather alternatives available to a company our size.
Vegetable-tan leather is also known as “tooling leather” - it’s leather that is made as a blank slate, to be tooled/etched/dyed/shaped by the artist. It’s the most versatile of leather options, because it can become anything. It also comes in many different weights, from the very light to the very heavy.
For large hides of vegetable tan or other heavy leathers, we typically break out the big guns and go with corporate sources. When the quality is comparable, we go with the sources that has the best sale and try to get our clients the best bang for their buck.
Tandy Leather
The classic source. If you love leather, you’ve heard of them. Tandy supplies leather, tools, dyes and embellishments.
Weaver’s Leather
An equally reliable source where we are often able to buy in bulk.