An experiment

 I want to make a purse, and I want to use some of the second hand leather I've accumulated, mostly as gifts (thanks, All!)

And some of the leathers are in colors I do like, but I have hesitations about using--the leather needle I have isn't meant for heavier hides; if I quilt the suede will it just look like a bad Chanel knock off, which would send all sorts of incorrect messages about the kind of person I am; do I really want to use up the fantastic stuff when I know my skill in this area isn't great...stuff like that.

I decided maybe I'd use the pale gray-blue and sepia mock reptile finish leather someone gave me about 20 years ago

It's really soft, but I know I could interface it

but of course that wasn't the biggest issue

The big problem was that my storage method had been bad, and the finish stuck hard to itself in many places

I went ahead and cut some small areas, to use with a contrast made up of some other leather I had.

I still hesitated, because those colors...yeah, not really ~me~

I thought maybe I could decorate it somehow?  And then immediately thought about the little rolls of heat transfer foil that had been in the huge amount of fabric and craft supplies that Nata brought a few years ago (thanks again!)  So I started researching how bad an idea it would be to deal with ironing an adhesive (I planned to use fusible web) onto leather

but

then I had a thought...

If this leather had destroyed itself by having such a sticky finish...then...could that stickiness be used as an adhesive for the foil...?

Yes.  Yes it could.

Not perfectly

but well enough to make me very happy

The sheet of transfer foil was 12" square, which was enough to cover the pieces of this leather that I had cut, with just a bit of solid area left on the foil sheet.  (And loads of negative space foil left, which I'm trying to remember if I have any other materials that might be self-sticky that it can be adhered to.)   I also have one sheet each of purple, red, and pale orange transfer foil, so I can continue to experiment with this stuff in the future.

Of course I have no idea how durable it will be; my main hope is that it wears off slowly enough that the change won't really be obvious without coming back to check these photos.

whenever I convince myself to actually sew the thing.  It's not like I don't have other projects I could do...