A sample to go, please

I was asked to send a sample suitcase to an event planning company in New York City. They are planning a travel themed wedding, saw one of my suitcases on my blog (how cool is that?!), and thought they might make good place card holders. If the client likes the sample, I may be making 100 mini suitcases for a July wedding. Lots of "ifs" for now but I did get the sample made and sent out. And, for the first time, I actually made patterns as I went so that it would be easier to replicate multiple suitcases. Even if the wedding thing doesn't work out my suitcases will now be much improved.
I also found a new glue (to me) that works really well with leather. It's Fabri-tac by Beacon Adhesives and I'm sure many of you have used it but this was my first time. I used regular tacky glue for the lining but the Fabri-tac was great for bonding the leather to the metal.
I'm not sure why the leather shows up gray -it's really a dark brown. While glue shopping, I found some leather lacing strips in colors I use for the suitcases. That makes the handles all very uniform in width. See, I'm learning lots of ways to improve the cases so there's a positive result no matter what the final outcome happens to be. :)

Another positive outcome is that I've found sources for empty tins and leather scraps. Up til now all of my suitcases have been made from recycled mint tins. I haven't run out of mints in a long time. ;) But a mini tin of Altoids is $1.29 (and you have to find a store that sells them - not an easy task sometimes) and the empty ones come out at 55 cents each. Plus they won't smell strongly of mint, lol.

I'm excited about the possibilities - any time miniatures get some "exposure" it's a good thing. Now to just sit and wait patiently...now that's the hard part!