I started thinking the other day (the exact thought process was long, involved, and a little confusing) and decided that I needed to make a sample book of the leather dyes I have on hand. Sometimes I want to make a two-toned saddle and I'm not sure what colors would go best together, sometimes customers want to see what specific colors look like, and sometimes I'm just bored and want an excuse to do something mindless. All very valid reasons to spend part of yesterday afternoon cutting, dyeing, and sealing sample sized pieces of leather. I used a small paper hole punch to put holes in each of them and a loose binder ring to hold them together. I wrote the name of the dye on the back of each sample and each piece is sealed with Tandy's Satin Shene on the right, Super Shene on the left. (As an aside...why must companies use "clever" spellings for their products? What's wrong with sheen? I suppose, though, that since my studio name is Dream
flite
instead of
flight
I have no room to talk.)
I set all of my swatches out and photographed them clearly in full sunlight. I then went into Photoshop and cropped down a bit of each swatch to put in a graphic that is now on the website.
Customers now have a decent idea of what I offer. Of course, color may still vary by dye batch, by monitor calibration, by how the leather accepts the dye, by how I'm holding my brush that day. It's no gaurantee, but it's a lot better than the vague mention of "available dye colors" I had previously. A link to this image replaces that text on the pricing pages of the website. Hurray!
Edit: For those who are interested, I use Tandy's Eco-Flo line of dyes and sealers.