My husband does leather tooling and I thought it would be fun to try my hand at it. While I've played around with random lines and shapes, I've never done a full carving before so this was rather interesting.
Step one: Sketch an idea.

Step two: Trace a pattern to later mark onto the leather. First I had to create my pattern since, you know, there arnt any Sylestia themed patterns. I used Paint to layout images, change sizing and create the candy hearts. Then I tapped paper over my screen to create my trace. I ended up moving it around a bit since I had too much empty space.

Step 3: Mark the leather. First you wet the leather and wait for it to absorb the water to the core. Then all you do is redraw the lines and it leaves an imprint on the leather. I had to be real careful the paper didn't move and make sure I didn't accidently mark or scuff anywhere else. Once it's marked it will never go away.


Step 4: Wet the leather again and Carve. For me this was the hardest part. The tool used is called a swivel knife, which you hold perfectly strait up and down and can roll between your index finger and thumb to make curves. My hand was exhausted afterwards. I had to go back and redo the Lune and parts of the Luffox since I didn't make the cuts deep enough. You can see the difference in the lines on the Neph/hearts vs the Lune/Luffox.

Step 5: Leather wet? Good. Now to bevel! You place the edge of the tool into your cuts and use a mallet to hammer this tool into the leathe. It bevels the leather around your lines to create depth and layers.

Step 6: Re-wet and time to texture! More hammering stamps into the leather to make it pretty. The words were really had to do, since we dont have any letter stamps.

All done! I am pretty impressed with how it turned, though its hard to see some of the details in the pic, I hope you all enjoy it too. Happy Valentines and Week of Love.

*edit of after thought* here are some close up to show more details

Warning y'all now, this is acrylic. At which I suck. Alright, to the pictures!(of which there are many lol)

Materials:

+tracing paper
+graphite paper

I first made my sketch(or rather, redid it because REASONS)

(Its a mork btw)

I made the background afterward, and I do make smol edits.


I traced the sketch, and made it accurate using a reference from the generator


I used the graphite paper and traced my revised sketch onto the background


Painting

(I used dark purples because of the American 'Purple Heart' medal that goes to certain people's in the military)

Finished product:

(Click image for plausibly less blurry photos)


This is my first time participating, so nervous I did bad ;w;

Woo boy, here we go!
For my created Valentine, I wanted to use something I love, chocolate. ^u^

First, I chose and printed out my image. For this Valentine, I used a female Zolnixi's head inside a heart.


I placed wax paper over the image and piped the outline in Hershey's milk chocolate which I had melted. Then I used melted white chocolate for some details.


Added food coloring to white chocolate to make some pink details.


Finishing off the Nixi with a very interesting purple color.


And then lastly, the heart!


After cooling in the fridge for 10 minutes, here we have our finished product. Not bad, especially since I haven't done this in quite a long time. ^-^


I ended up not finishing it though. I had ideas for some lettering and extra details, but it took 2 1/2 hours for just this, so I gave up. ^-^;

your one looks so cool..! I'm not surprised that took 2 and a half hours, it looks really good! I would probably not have gotten those results in five hours ;w; Good luck!(to you and the rest lol0

Thank you! It was the outline of the nixi as well as the white that mainly took so long. The white on the ears had to have the sharp parts done with a toothpick. ^-^ It took so long that I didn't even finish, it was supposed to be two pieces, the nixi and heart, put together to make it 3D.

There was also going to be little hearts and the words Be Mine! as well...but I was just so done. I used to to this kind of stuff a lot, so I'm gonna have to do more to get back into it. ^u^


I really like yours too Wolfie! The colors are awesome. ^-^ It came out really good.

Lol, I get it. I've never worked with acrylic much, so my project was certainly an experience xD

It came out really good though! I bet it was fun, I love doing arts and crafts things, no matter what the material. It's very relaxing for me. ^-^

Ohmygoshthankkyouuuu!! I was super worried that it wouldn't look very good, I'll definitely try to practice between the fests! Hopefully I can get better rendering and such, and hopefully an actual background lol

Ok, here's my Valentine! I hope I didn't interpret "Valentine" too creatively. I wanted something unusual, and when I was brainstorming, the thought came to me that jewelry is a common Valentine's day gift. So I settled on making a wire pendant for my entry.

After looking at some inspiration images and Valentine-themed Sylestia avatar items, I settled on an idea of two Nephini together forming the shape of a heart. Here are my messy sketches of that concept:


My first attempt at the pendant:


At first, I was going to build up the shapes entirely out of wire. I was having difficulties with that, though, and I found some pearl beads I thought would work for the heads of the Nephs. Only problem was, how do I get them on now that the wire shape is closed up? Answer: You don't.

So here's my second time making the wire base, this time with beads put on first:

There, that's good.

Next was finishing the shape, and then adding the wings:

I also added two tiny beads to cap the wire ends, and it was finished!

I draped a chain around it to see how it would look on a necklace:

And yes, I changed the "3" on the piece of paper to an "8" because that was the day I finished it.

Oh, and here's a version of the last picture with a cheesy Valentine's pun added:


So there it is! I had fun designing and making this from scratch.

Edit:
On reviewing, my entry's presentation seems a little plain. So I've taken another picture with a better setting:

Follow the link for a larger size.

Fae Sun Catcher

So this year I decided to go simple... Ok I felt un-inspired, I toyed with a card.. but that seams well covered, played with something edible but got snowed in XD, could have done a nice sterling silver pendant.. but... seamed a bit over the top. Then a friend suggested a suncatcher (TY Friend) I thought why not recycle the stuff I had here so my entry loves the earth too XD
It is a simple design, I was going for shadow puppet renditions of Sylestia's Faelora, If I had access to a sharper razer I might have gotten more fancy.. ah well.

1. The stuff, yup all my bits used, The black book is my sketch book BTW


2. Sketched design, I used it as a template too.


3. Cut out images in black construction paper, some fuzzing happened here sadly.


4. Creative application of glue, cut out recycled tissu paper hearts and my cut outs. This part took over night to dry fully.


5. Dyed out window shaped, and exacto cut heart box top, made a very nice frame.


6. All finished with glued on bow hanger and glued in window. Just needs to hang.


7. These three are just different shots of the finished suncatcher, the sun wasn't in the mood to be caught (darn snow foiling me again) so I used house lights to show off this projects glow.




This project was very simple but took the most time in planning, if nothing else my kiddos liked it and it decorates there room now. Happy Valentines day!
~Dragoil