Welcome to The Local Craftsman
Welcome to The Local Craftsman.
If you are already on this site then you probably already know who we are but if you don’t, a double welcome.
We are Kathleen and Aaron.
We are the makers, designers and creators behind The Local Craftsman. We love to make things and believe strongly in using local materials wherever we can.
Although we have tried many different crafts and are always trying new ones we have both settled (mostly settled) on two district crafts: Leatherwork and Jewellery (with a focus on Silver and Goldsmithing).
The story about how we ended up choosing these crafts is pretty long and will make up a blog post for another time.
Our Aim
This is probably why it took both of us so long to start a new joint business. We both love making things but never had any plan behind it. We both have others jobs and while we are really happy doing what we are doing we slowly want our side hustle to be our main source of income and live off our passion.
To make that a reality we at The Local Craftsman want to offer quality handmade products that look good and age even better.
All things have a story before you even buy them. From where they were made to who made them and why.
Very rarely do we batch make things so we often make things specifically with the buyer in mind. And so even though they are buying something we may have made hundreds of, it is still unique because:
Every piece of leather is different, even the same hide of leather will have sections that look completely different
It is all handmade, hand cut, hand hammered, and hand stitched and so everything will have slight variations.
We also want to make leather lessons more widely available, especially in highschools. We want to show:
You can do a job in just about anything as long as you are passionate about it
There is a great sense of satisfaction that comes from making things with your hands.
You don’t have to buy something you could make yourself
Why people should have an appreciation for skilled craftsmen.
Branding The Local Craftsman
No one buys a dining table with a brand mark on it and no self respecting craftsman would put a giant brand on a table either. They want the beauty of the table to speak for itself. The buyer chooses it because they are in love with how it looks not because of the brand.
We feel the same about our products.
We want people to fall in love with the beauty of the design and materials, with how it looks. Any brand on it would ruin it.
We will put our branding on our packaging and where possible on the inside of a product so it isn’t easily seen but other than that our products will remain clean and as natural as possible.
This being said, if we get more than 5 people ask for a brand on their product we will make it an option. But that is very unlikely.
Personalisation
Although we like our products to remain brand-less, we encourage people to ask for the things they buy to be personalised with initials, a quote or maybe something else.
When something has your initials or name on it, you are more likely to use it and we want our products to be used.
It’s yours and no one else’s.
Custom orders
Because our real passion is making things and not necessarily the running of The Local Craftsman we love custom orders. We love turning a rough sketch or idea into reality. So even if you are worried about the price, send us your budget along with what you have in mind and we will do our best (we will say no if the request doesn’t match the budget but we may be able to suggest a compromise).
Hopefully this has given you a rough idea about us at The Local Craftsman. We will do some more blog posts going into a bit more depth about both of us at a later date but for now you can also check out our FAQs below:
Or shop here: