Third wedding anniversary present ...

Tomorrow is mine and my wife's third wedding anniversary, and the traditional gift is something made from leather, or involving leather and as we said we would try and make all our wedding anniversary presents I had to come up with something made with leather.

My first idea failed quite badly, it's funny how an idea that seems fantastic in your head actually isn't that great when it comes to actually making it.

I'm pleased to say that my second idea (plan b) actually worked very well, least I think it did.


Here it is -

It's written in runic in case you are wondering.

I've used the same sort of idea as I did with the valentines gift I made for my wife, that being a Buddleja frame, mainly because it is quite straight and it's easy to make it all fit together.

The writing says ' I love you ' and it's in runic (I know soft git aren't I) I basically stitched the wooden back ground with thin leather, all in all it didn't take that long to do, maybe two hours spread over a few days, I spent more time on getting the translation as accurate as I could, after all it should say I love you, and not be a recipe for pickled herring or such like, another reason for using runic was because the characters are easy to create as they are quite angular, I also like that it's an ancient language.

Here's the lettering - 

Pickled herring anyone ?

I printed the characters out on paper, then marked the points where the angles change on the wood, then I drilled holes at each point with a small drill bit, then it was just a case of threading the leather through the holes.

The frame is the same sort of frame I always use for this type of thing, mainly because it's easy to make a frame with Buddleja wood, then I used a clear varnish on the frame, and I gave the leather and the wooden back ground a coat of Linseed oil.

The frame with varnish - 

It has more of a shine than I intended.

And lastly I added a strip of leather to the top as a means to hang the plaque up with, I just used small tacks to hold the strip of leather onto the back of it.

The hanger - 

It was a bit long, so I added a knot.

That's about it, one wedding anniversary gift using the traditional leather, next year if we stick to tradition it's flowers I think (that's an easy one) or I might go for silk, which is also given for the fourth wedding anniversary.

Here it is again - 

I quite like it.

Happy anniversary to my lovely wife xxx

Thanks for reading.