Bynd Artisan specialises in the craft of book binding and leather making,
and has an impressive history of 60 years in the craft.
More than anything, Bynd Artisan is a tribute to the enduring excellence of a small band of locally trained artisans, schooled in the traditional ways of bookbinding and leather working.
Got invited to spend one of my weekend afternoons at Bynd Artisan learning about the leather craft and making a set of leather items from scratch.
Being open to new experiences and up for learning new skills, I said "YES PLEASE" to the invite.
The kind people at Bynd Artisan also extended the invitation to one of my friends and I brought Yoko along because I thought she was likely to enjoy it as much as me.
We were seated at the atelier and the table was displayed with an array of tools which were unfamiliar.
It was a small class of 4 to ensure that we receive sufficient attention from the artisans there.
Drinks and light snacks are also offered,
which I thought was a really nice gesture.
We were given clear and precise instructions and were guided every step of the way.
So it was not as daunting.
Templates were also given to ensure minimal errors.
Hahaha.
So don't worry if you're not one of those who are extremely crafty!
If I can do it, so can you.
It was not as difficult as I expected and time passed quickly.
Learnt quite a bit about working with leather.
Turned out that there are quite a few things I have to take note of in order to not to ruin the leather I was working with.
Walked around the pretty atelier while waiting for the rest to snap some photos because I got done really soon.
What can I say... I'm a fast learner.
Hahaha.
And here's my favourite part of the session -
HOT STAMPING!
We got to stamp silver/gold alphabets/numbers to personalise our leather items.
By the way,
do note that hot stamping is not inclusive in the normal courses if you were to register.
It costs $30 to hot stamp each item if I don't remember wrongly.
BUT SO PRETTY I DON'T MIND PAYING IF I HAD TO.
You can always opt to do the normal embossing (which is free of charge) if you want to.
But it isn't as eye catching as if you were to do hot stamping.
And the final part is fixing the press studs onto the leather.
Which was really more confusing that it seemed.
But I eventually managed to get them sorted out with a fair bit of help from the artisans, haha.
Our final products -
a keyring, card holder, coin purse and a leather bracelet!
All these crafted from a single piece of leather.
Bynd Artisan offers quite a few different type of courses and the one which Yoko and I attended is called the Quadro Workshop.
You can hop over to their website for more available courses.
The notebook ones look really interesting too!
The location is slightly out of the way (not a problem if you drive though)...
But I would say that the effort is worth it!
We had a really enjoyable afternoon learning about something new.
Definitely a weekend activity you can look into with your friends or partner.
And the items also makes for nice thoughtful gifts for your loved ones!
Bynd Artisan
2 Chin Bee Avenue Singapore 619927
Disclaimer:
This post is not an advertorial.
I was merely invited for the workshop as a trial and not paid to blog about it.
Only sharing because I genuinely had a good time!
