Today we’d like to introduce you to Katie Griffith.
Hi Katie, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
I guess it really all goes back to when I was a kid. A lot of leatherwork is drawing. Drawing is the foundation to most designs. I hand draw all of my projects. Each one is totally unique. Drawing was what I did as a kid in between my other hobbies of playing sports and showing horses. One side of my family was heavy into showing horses, the other was rodeo through being contestants and stock contractors. I remember a family buddy of ours, rode saddle bronc, was out at the house and asked me to draw a picture of him based on a picture that had been snagged of him riding. He said, “I’ll be your first paying gig!” And he sure was. I often wonder if he didn’t see something in me as a kid that I didn’t even see in myself yet.
College hit, and naturally drawing got set to the side. Horses did not. I was very fortunate to take equine classes (that counted towards credit for my major!) at Missouri State University. That evolved to joining the MSU Equestrian Team and getting the opportunity to show horses at a collegiate level with some pretty awesome coaches and made a lot of friends I still have now. If you know horse people, we are definitely DIYers to the extreme because our four legged friends and our hobbies involving them are pretty expensive. I had a draw to leather work, but it was always one of those “maybe someday” things. Upon graduation, I became an ag teacher and FFA advisor, and that took over my life and most of my free time, leather was forgotten.
Which led to 2020, during shutdown (still a teacher, but had pivoted to 8th grade science at this point) crafting days became a way that a few family members and I would get together and maintain our sanity. I picked up some of my aunt’s tools, and it’s really just evolved from there. The first project I made was a pair of earrings. A buffalo stamp right in the middle, a decorative edge, slapped on some paint, and I thought it was the absolute coolest project! Looking back now, oh man were they rough.
My initial projects were jewelry of all kinds, mainly pre-cut bracelets and earrings. That expanded into a side hustle after school resumed again in Fall of 2020. My primary focus then was still small projects such as jewelry and money clips that came in kits from Tandy Leather. Then I contracted Covid. I bounced back from it for six months or so after a couple month rough period post-infection. June 2021, my world flipped upside down when Long Covid reared its ugly head. One day I was helping flag girls at our local rodeo, and almost quite literally the next I was bedbound. I went back to teaching for one year after that. I handed in my resignation in January because my body could not handle it anymore. I’d come home from school every day with my whole body vibrating, heart palpitations, extreme panic attacks that often kept me from sleeping, just complete exhaustion like I had never felt. I later learned this was from central nervous system damage and dysregulation from a combination of burnout and the virus.
At this point, I became pretty well 100% bed-bound for the better part of two years. If I went for a walk, my heart rate would shoot up to 150 bpm. My blood pressure was sky-high, even at rest. I developed all kinds of food allergies. It was all so foreign and weird, because I’d always been an athlete. I was one of those gals who could keep up with and outwork “the boys” (as are most agricultural women). I found a program that helped me regain enough function that I could even think about any kind of activity. The doctor in that program told me to find something that was relaxing that I could get lost in, so I picked my tools back up and every waking minute I could I dove deep into teaching myself all I could about the craft. Slowly, symptoms disappeared, and I started returning to more normal function. At this point, I needed some type of career I could do to work from home. Leatherwork was a natural fit.
Things evolved from there! I’m currently back in a little bit of a health valley, due to other issues not related to leather and out of my control bringing burnout back on. It does affect my ability to work over a 30-40 hour week. I’ve been able to take what I’ve learned and grow into bigger projects and continue to “perfect” (nothing is ever perfect” and narrow down a line of more specialized projects.
I’ve joined a leather business coaching group. I will forever be grateful beyond measure to our mentor and the people in there, as well as the incredible people he has brought in to speak to and teach us. Because of them I have continued to grow skills in this craft. I am more excited than I’ve ever been to learn and continue. I currently specialize in bible covers, planner covers, spur straps, belts, dog collars, and checkbook covers. I’m looking to expand into purses and bags as a next step, having already completed some, but working to perfect them more before fully taking orders. I have another step beyond that, but I’m keeping it a secret for now between myself and the few family members that know about them. When the first one is done, I’ll be posting them on all of my social media pages. If it hadn’t been for the help of our mentor, I would not be as far as I am on them, and it’s still in the beginning stages.
You can’t be afraid to fail. Failure is inevitable. It’s your ability to get back up and try again after that failure that makes all the difference. But I also have the firm belief that products should live up to a certain point of tested quality before taking orders on them.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
No. Not a smooth road. Looking back, how the pieces of the puzzle came together make sense how God designed it all. But not smooth at all.
I had to quit what I believed was going to be my lifelong career. There’s a part of your identity that comes with that as well as security. I had to cash in my retirement to live on for a couple years. There’s been significant financial and emotional investments to keep this alive and going. My health taking a significant hit has been an absolute soul crushing experience, but if it had not happened, I never would have pursued this full time.
I’ve learned as life progresses, a lot of the people you’d thought would always be there, will not. As you evolve, so does your circle. And life happens, events take place you’d never expect. Unfortunately a lot of the time entrepreneurship is lonely, especially entrepreneurship with health problems that limit your energy budget. It’s been a battle to get a healthy mindset around all of these things.
All you can do is continue to do what you believe is the next right thing to do. One day at at time, 1% better each day as a goal. “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” Improvement will not be seen 100% overnight, and if that is your goal, you will fail. 1% better each day is a more obtainable goal. My great uncle always said about the family livestock mineral business “it only took 30 years to become an overnight success” and there is a lot of truth to that. “You have to work hard in the dark to shine in the light” -Kobe Bryant A little over a year into full-time pursuit, and five years in total, and I’m still establishing my roots and determining which routes to take. You should always strive to evolve, but sometimes you have to get out of your own way and the things you “lose” along the way, the “identity” you think you have, need to be lost or misplaced for a bit to make way for what God truly has for you.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
Construction-wise: I specialize in book covers of all types from Bibles to planners, notebooks, the construction is all the same. I also currently specialize in belts, spur straps, and dog collars. I’ve made any and everything from game carriers, wallets of all shapes and sizes, guitar straps, knife sheaths (both pocket and custom molded to fixed blades), bronc halter nosebands, bouquet wraps/garters, and the list goes on, but I have been taught that often it is best to focus primarily on a handful of items, “perfect” those and when you think you’ve perfected them, dig a little deeper and perfect even more. “An inch wide and a mile deep” over “an inch deep and a mile wide” is the current mindset I’m in. There is nothing wrong with being versatile and a jack of all trades in the leather world, in fact a lot of leatherworkers go through that. Some very successfully stay that way, but my current focus is to really hone in on a handful of items. I’m currently transitioning into purchasing primarily American made and owned leathers like Hermann Oak (shout out to another Missouri business over in St. Louis!) and Wickett and Craig. I cut all projects out from hides and sides I purchase, with the exception of tooled belts. I purchase Hermann Oak belt blanks from Joe and Marti Meling at 23+, then tool them myself.
Tooling-wise: My favorite things to create are animal figures. Figure carving is becoming a favorite of mine. Watching a bucking horse (my absolute favorite), deer, elk, etc come to life on a piece of leather is so much fun. I also specialize in hand drawn floral and vine work, I am forever working on creating my own style and improving it. In the leather world, most people fall into 3 categories, purchase pre-made patterns to tool, 100% draw your own, or a combination of the two. For the most part (with the exception of a few cast iron skillet holders and the background of one garter) I hand draw ALL of my own projects. There is absolutely nothing wrong with using pre-made patterns, there is nothing wrong with being 100% hand drawn. Creating my own designs and my own style is just my personal preference and I believe that is one thing of many that sets me apart along with my ability to figure carve. I recently drew a bareback horse solely out of scrollwork and vines that I am pretty excited about!! 100% never would have been able to do that without the drawing instruction of people who came before me, especially Joe Meling, HUGE shout out to him. Take his classes and watch his YouTube channel!
I like to take people on the journey of creating and building projects through social media posts. I currently do not have a website. In addition to finished projects, my TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram pages are full of video and picture posts of projects in various stages of being finished, as well as, explanations of how and why I do what I do. Although we all mostly work alone, leather is a community, and we all learn from each other. I am transparent about everything I do. As a customer, you deserve to know everything about the product you’re purchasing, and as a fellow worker, I’m a firm believer we can all learn from each other! Myself included learning from others!
I also think it’s important to ask questions to get to know your customers both their design preferences and a little information personally. That is another thing that sets pretty well all leather workers apart from mass-produced and name brand companies. You’re working with an actual person who cares about you and your project and getting it made exactly how you want it. Whether it’s myself or another creator, I have yet to meet any high quality leather worker that does not have your satisfaction and working with your preferences at the top of their priority list. It’s our job to make you a unique heirloom that can last generations.
Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
Oh so many. I’m sure I’ll forget a lot of them.
YouTube channels that I’ve learned a lot from are Joe Meling and 23+, Don Gonzales, Girty Leather Co, Alden’s School of Leather Trades, Van Plew, Tandy Leather, Weaver Leather (Chuck Dorsett), shoutout to Missouri’s own Springfield Leather Company (Denny, Kevin, Liz, and all of the crew), The Bible Project
Socials: Kasey Jean Leather Designs, Brandon Corral aka Swift Hammer Leather, and the social media accounts of all of the above mentioned YouTube creators
Classes: Literally anything at Elktracks Studios. Jim Linell himself and the other instructors he’s had are incredible. I’ve loved every class I’ve purchased so far. Joe Meling’s Pencil to Pattern Challenge he hosts on Zoom for purchase on his website was an absolute game changer for me, he teaches you how to draw Sheridan style floral and vinework. It’s typically open once or twice a year.
Podcasts: Lost Trades by Don Gonzales, The Diary of a CEO, The Fallon Taylor Podcast (great for mindset), LeAnn Hart Ministries (Oklahoma gal and wife to PBR Kansas City Outlaws coach JW Hart), Cowgirl Confessions by Dakota Johnson (another awesome person from the KC area), Cowgirl Problems by Courtenay Dehoff (another KC area native!)
Books: The Holy Bible (pretty well sums a well-lived life up and how to be a good person of service!), Profit First (as recommended by my mentor) I’ve read so many mindset books, I just can’t remember a lot of them!
Blogs: DG Saddlery (Don Gonzales) has both business and project advice
Apps: Holy Bible app, The Bible Project, Skool (Leather Life Community-free), YouTube, Procreate for ipad drawing, Canva for content creation, Practice Better (shoutout to ANOTHER KC area business that is nationwide, The Redefining Wellness Center, Dr. Jaban Moore and the entire staff for helping me get my health back on track!), Google suite and connected work-related apps such as Drive, Sheets, etc.
And honestly, all of the keynote speakers I had the opportunity to listen to at FFA National Convention both as a student and teacher. A lot of the keynote speeches are on YouTube, so many incredible people. Let your kids join extracurriculars like FFA, FBLA, and FCCLA, etc!!!
Pricing:
- Pricing is determined by reaching out and receiving a personalized quote.
- The best place to reach out is my business page on Facebook.
- Most of my following is on TikTok and Facebook.
- I do not check Instagram often.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kg_leatherworks?igsh=MTNnYnVjNzR1bmdicQ==
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/17FGVsaHXy/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@katiegriffith468?_t=ZP-90WZJ3HLbgN&_r=1
