Walleteer
for Wallets

Maybe not the most masculine wallet in the world, this creation is certainly cute! The hair is gold leaf, and the eyes are currently stuck on with blue-tack.

Gold leaf is a mad substance to work with. It comes packaged in a little book, with sheets of foil between pages of tissue. You have to be really careful working with the gold leaf because it's beaten so thin that it's really light. If anyone opens the door of the room your working in, or even walks past at speed your gold leaf is likely to fly off throughout the room!

I was surprised at how hard wearing the gold leaf is. This experiment is partly because we want to be able to put personalised initials and messages on the wallets that we sell, and it's important to us that we produce good quality work that lasts. I wasn't expecting the gold leaf to rub off, but even with a fairly hard scratch with a fingernail it stands up well. The substance is also very flexible, which is pleasing as I was worried that it wouldn't work very well on a flexible surface like a wallet.

Obviously blue-tack isn't the best way to stick the eyes on. If we want to take this further, we'll have to either experiment with proper glue, or find a way to sew or rivet the eyes to the leather. This is clearly the best solution, but requires that we work closely with the manufacturers, or start manufacturing our own wallets to get a satisfactory finish and not leave the inside of the wallet looking messy.

I'm really pleased with how my little face wallet has come out. Using the Samsonite logo as the mouth is a nice touch, and feels much more imaginative than simply drawing my own one on.