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| - Tandy Leather Factory is a chain but the customer care and attention they dispense at the 19th Avenue store will move this place to the top of your list of 'mom and pop' businesses.
This store contains everything you need (and then some) to make leather crafts, clothing and accessories. If you needed a whole cow hide for interior design purposes, well you could find that here, too. What fun to wander the aisles of tools, gadgets, hardware, and leather hides of EVERY shape and size. In the back of the store there's an entire wall of prepackaged craft kits which would make great gifts for kids or projects for a classroom or boy scout/girl scout troop project. The choices are a little overwhelming so on your first visit you might want to simply take a wander all around, then be sure to grab a catalog on your way out so you can think about what you might want to get on your next visit.
There are Tandy discount programs you can sign up for to save on purchases by paying a small annual membership fee, and some of those discounts can be mighty - a friend and I recently bought ourselves the basic leather crafting kit with tools for $29 (marked all the way down from $89, one of their monthly specials). Pricing is fair and the frequent sales sweeten the deal even further.
The best part of Tandy on 19th Ave are the people - Ed and his staff. There is a work table set up near the cash register and they will happily take you over there to demonstrate how to use tools or answer any "how to" questions you come up with - then let you try it yourself. When we bought the beginner kits they told us that they offer free 'how to' classes once a week (you have to bring all your own tools, or buy them onsite) as well as other classes periodically on more advanced topics.
Couldn't ask for a friendlier, more well supplied store as your local one stop shop for all things leathercraft.
Located in an industrial strip on the east side of 19th Avenue. south of McDowell and south of the freeway overpass.
4 stars = Yee Haw!
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