Platypus Max Blog — barrettes

As a life-long maker, artist, and designer, it was a real surprise to me when I learned what an amazingly versatile material leather is to work with. But before leather, there was clay. For me anyhow. If you’ve ever worked with clay, you may be familiar with the term “leather hard” and there’s a reason for this! Before it is dyed and sealed, raw vegetable tanned leather acts a lot like leather-hard clay, taking stamps, and impressions of various found objects.

I discovered this while trying to make myself the perfect hair barrette. I love the simplicity of putting my hair up in them. Elastics just don’t work all that well for me, I just can’t get the hair to sit the way I like it in front. But I get annoyed by finding cute or pretty barrettes at craft fairs or even at Target just that don’t seem like they were designed to hold my full head of hair. Some pinch some were put together with hot glue and fall apart after a few uses, and some just don’t hold. I wanted a barrette that would hold all of MY hair, and I wanted it to look pretty.