About Us
Who We Are and How We Started
My husband (Donnie) and I (Jo) met at a friend's wedding about 15 years ago. We eventually got married and moved from Ohio to South Carolina. My husband was looking for work, was a part-time farrier, and finally found a full-time position as a full-time engineer. He was wanting to make himself a new pair of chaps. He signed up for a class at a local leather store to learn about working and tooling leather. I went along to watch. The instructor told me that I couldn't just sit there and watch and loaned me a set of tools with which to learn. I loved it!
Before we knew what we had gotten into, we had leather and supplies everywhere. Donnie (the designer/dreamer) started coming up with ideas of what to make. I (the person who makes it "pretty") was learning a lot about tooling, dyes, and assembly.
We were soon meeting with other leather workers, attending conferences, and taking more classes. We were hooked!
Due to work, we moved to Atlanta, GA, then to Memphis, TN, then to LaGrange, GA. I had, by this time, made a lot of little leather items so we thought about doing some of the local craft shows. People were interested in the types of items we make. They weren't the usual belts with names and plain wallets. We were making unique jewelry items, lampshades, hot sauce holsters (due to a need at a South Carolina oyster festival), book covers, holsters, and unique purses and wallets. Then we received our first request for a custom wallet!
I was looking for work and to keep myself busy, I made more items so that our booth wouldn’t look so empty.
Lazy K Leather officially became a company in 2014. I was getting more and more custom requests. The requests all started coming with unique designs that customers wanted on the piece. I found that it was taking longer and longer to make a quality piece for a customer that would last them a lifetime.
In November 2019, my husband passed away and then the C19 virus interfered with life. I moved to a new home, but couldn't find the drive to work with leather. Then a close friend asked me to make her a purse. My joy with leather has come back and I've been working on some new projects -- from purses to clocks. What I love to do most is "tool" leather. I had a friend once tell me that leather wants a design on it so don’t leave it plain!
I have started looking at new ways to learn new things. Each custom job and new product teaches me something. Your custom requests make me better and I enjoy working with each customer to create a unique product.
If you see something, but need to have it customized, send me an email. And, because I have been trying new designs, my on-hand inventory is constantly changing.
Rather learn how to make your design in leather, check out the Classes & Events page.
Hope to hear from you soon.