NATCHEZ — What used to be a hobby is now a business for Randy Myers.

Officially, Myers’ leatherwork business, Natchez Saddles & Leather, has been around since 2010. The local animal control officer said he’s been crafting private leatherwork for friends since 1992, and has done repairs to his own saddles since he was in sixth grade.

Myers made harnesses and repaired saddles for his mules as a child.

Myers gets creative with his leatherwork — creating a holster for a pistol is as “simple” as fitting leather to the gun, then adding rivets. Myers can get into fine detail by tooling deer, initials and small stamps into his custom card holders and money clips.

Myers said his wife, Myra, describes him as artistic, but said he’s not an artist.

“An artist can just create things,” Myers said. “I use patterns and pictures. Of course, I can freehand a deer pretty well.”

Myers keeps a map of the United States in his shop, with pushpins marking all the places he’s been. The reach of his business looks similar. Myers says he’s received orders from friends in California and New York and he even made a guitar strap for a musician in Alaska.

Myers said the most popular orders he receives are for holsters and knife sheathes, which he creates from scratch.

“I wrap the leather around it and mold the leather to fit it,” Myers said. “It’s quite a process.”

Myers said leatherwork is unique with regards to the antiquity of the craft.

“It’s been around since Christ,” Myers said. “The artwork is unique. When I do a piece, it’s a one-of-a-kind original. No one else has one like that.”

Myers looks most like an artist at work when he garners his bulky, plastic spectacles as he tools designs into pieces of genuine leather. He is able to hand-tool palm-sized designs and color them. It’s a tedious, time consuming process, he said.

Myers soaks the leather with water before tooling the design into it.

“Leather is like a sponge,” Myers said. “That’s why it’s so important to keep the oil in there to lock those fibers in.”

Myers said he gets two or three jobs per week, enough to keep him busy after he punches the clock at 3 p.m. Myers sometimes travels hundreds of miles to leather stores in Louisiana or Alabama.

“I like to go pick it out so I know just what I’m getting,” Myers said.