Jack Barba Handmade

08/27/2025

Great song - also is a local - forever.

08/24/2025

The driveway engineering didn’t hold and I’m glad it happened now - so I can replant before the winter 🫶🙏

07/22/2025

06/29/2025

Quick update on my 🌵 garden and two HUGE blooms on the ‘lady of the night’ (Cereus Hexagonus).

06/25/2025

10/23/2023

Hecho! My first belt ever, now lined and studded 🤘

- solid brass (np) buckle
- veg tan front & back
- old ass studs I got at an Austin thrift store find 😂

Not done, done - but for personal items / projects when is something ever really done? 🤨

Decided not to stitch this one (after putting a row of stitching holes near the tip 😬) — but the glue will hold and I didn’t want to overdo it. Also, I wanted to start wearing it, so it will likely just get touch up burnishing here and there.

🖤

10/20/2023

Progress update -

Studs and conchos are set.

Navy vegtan backing glued (about 98% :/ ) and cut, still needs edge work. Then it’s just stitching and hardware 🫠🖤

10/19/2023

Update on this old guy.

It’s taking me longer than expected to make a stud design and set the studs and conchos…

I’m thinking navy vegtan for the lining and navy thread 🪡 🧵

10/18/2023

First belt I ever made - probably 7-8 years ago… you can see it’s a super lightweight leather… 5/6MM?? If I remember correctly, I bought the biggest single shoulder veg tan piece at Tandy I could find and wrapped it around my waist corner to corner long to see if I could use it… no strap cutter, just a 36” ruler that isn’t long enough to make the entire strap cut 😂 working on my kitchen floor for pounding or cutting, on the carpet for my knees (when not)…

I love thinking back on making designs with fewer tools and materials that weren’t always right for the job… the design work to figure all that out and then see what works better and why and all that … it’s beautiful 😍

If you’re new to leatherworking (or tennis, or Hollow Knight, or grilling, or anything) just keep at it, everything takes time, enjoy the journey as much as possible - for real… but that sounded just as cheesy and cliche to me as I’m sure it does to you, so enough of that.

This belt was featured on Fade of the day series about 5 years ago, when was still RAWR Denim!

Well it’s gonna get some conchos added, then imma line it and sititch it 💪 progress pics to come 🖤

10/09/2023

A brand new cross body in front of an older (and more mature) laptop bag 😆🖤

The crossbody design is an oob diy template from Tandy that I changed up to swap some dark blue vegtan for reg natty veg tan.

The design itself comes with everything you need to assemble it (minus a flathead screwdriver for the Chicago screws) but I super recommend this kit for anyone who’s at all interested in leather working.