Leatherwood Trading Post is a small workshop in Brandon, MB dedicated to producing long-lasting items with traditional materials & a modern twist. All items are handmade by a single craftsman, Morgan James, who told bdnmb.ca that starting the business came from a perfect storm really. Christmas was coming up and he wanted to make some special gifts for family members rather than just buy them something. According to James, he got the bright idea to make a wallet by hand so he ordered some basic starter tools and a DIY wallet kit and decided to just go for it. Watching Youtube videos and learning about leatherworking started to eat up a ton of his time, he was genuinely interested in the craft and intrigued by all of the things one can do & make. Around this same time some emergency repairs came up on his house and James decided to do some leatherworking as a bit of a side hustle. He started with small keychains as an easy Christmas gift for people to give and within a very short time he knew that it had the potential to be so much more. Within 3 months of ordering tools he started planning to be a leatherworker full time, and realized that goal in June of 2021.
Keychains of various styles & designs make up a big portion of his sales catalog, as well as custom hats with leather patches. Other great products of note are the pet ID/Dog tags, and custom branded promotional items. The nature of laser engraving when combined with leather provides unlimited possibilities for branding and customizing products that will last a long time and be incredibly unique.
James works with leather as his primary medium but new materials are becoming available all the time. As of now, he has doing branding/engraving on slatestone, silicone, wood, glass, cork, and powder coated metal but there will definitely be more options in the future. Turnaround tome for orders are typically under 5 days, custom ordered apparel (hats, toques, etc) can be shipped in ~8 business days.
Anyone interested in purchasing items, or seeing what the company can offer, can visit the webstore at leatherwood.ca. Leatherwood Trading Post can also be found on etsy, Facebook, and Instagram.
