First I have to admit that I'm not a leatherworker. I suspect that a large part of answering my question is just to practice to get the skill down. But I'm wondering if there are any tricks to help me do better, faster. I have an online shop where my best selling product is greyhound muzzles that have leather padding on the nose bridge. I know from past customer inquiries that I could sell even more if I could print the customer's dog's name on the nose leather. I did a little research and found an inexpensive hand-held soldering wand/hot foil stamper tool and bought it.

I've been practicing on a piece of scrap leather. Laying it out on a flat surface is easy peasy. But the muzzles are not flat and I don't want to dis-assemble them to print the names. (I don't make them, so I can't stamp the name before the leather is attached.) So I used a couple of clothespins to pin the leather scrap to a large water glass and am practicing with that. It's going fairly well, but I'm noticing that I have trouble making the print straight.

Is there some way to give myself a guide line to ensure I print the name straight across so that it looks at least semi-professional and not slapped on?