Easy DIY Leather Projects

I really love working with leather. I took a workshop a few years ago so I could learn from the pros 🙂 I ended up creating a tablet case and a passport holder. They looked so good, I was hooked. Since then I’ve tried a few things, and some of them are so easy that you don’y really need to do a whole workshop (even though I highly recommend). Everything you need to know, I will show you in my youtube video.

These easy DIY leather projects would also be great Christmas gifts! Leather is really easy to personalize, you can paint on it with leather paint or stamp with metal alphabet stamps.

You can cut these projects out with a rotary cutter or scissors but you can also use you cricut (with a deep point blade). I have the PDF patterns to download for printing and the SVG to download if you want to upload them to cricut. You will also need a punch tool to make holes for the rivets on all these projects and a wooden mallet to close the rivets.

You can find all the leather supplies and tools I use from Amazon here:

Leather Crafting Favourites on Amazon (A list of all my favourite leather supplies)

Easy Leather Keychain

The first project is the easiest and that is the key chain. This one has a great spot for stamping or painting. For this project you will need the following:

Pattern (SVG, PDF)
Leather
1 small rivet
Keyring

You will need to punch a hole for the rivet to go through. Once you’ve place the top part of the rivet on you will the close up the rivet with a mallet.

DIY Leather Home Decor: Catch Alls

The second project is perfect for holding random objects you have lying around on your beside table or a cute way to organize your washi tape collection! I have 2 different catch alls to try, one is more of a round shape while the other is rectangular. This is what you need:

Catch All #1:

Pattern (SVG, PDF)
Leather
2 large rivets

leather catchall diy step 1 — Once the leather is cut, you will want to match up the corners and mark where the rivet holes will go.

leather catchall diy step 2 — I usually punch one hole first and make sure the bottom layer is where I like it and then mark that layer for the second hole.

leather catchall diy step 3 — Once you put the rivets through you will want to gently hammer the top rivet down so they are nice and tight.

leather catchall diy step 4 — You will do the same with all four corners. The inside corners should be layered a little more than the outside corners (to create a smaller circle) so the outside layers can fit around the inside layers.

Catch All #2:

Pattern (SVG, PDF)
Leather
4 small rivets

For this pattern you will want to layer the 3 rectangle shapes at the end on top of each other and mark where the rivet holes will go (should be centered).

To mark the holes, I use a sharp object on the first layer then punch the hole. I then layer the flaps together again and take the sharp tool to poke through the hole into the second layer and repeat the process until all 3 layers are punched.

I used a large rivet for this project because there are 3 layers of leather which ends up being quite thick.

As an extra polish I used leather glue to keep the ends flush. I used a binder clip to hole it in place while the glue dried.

Goth Inspired Leather Pencil Case or Brush Holder

The last project is my favourite! I found these skull rivets on amazon and needed to create a project just for them. You don’t have to use the skull rivet, a button snap or button stud will work as well. The button studs are really easy to install, they are similar to the rivet. You will need a hole for the base of the button and then you simply screw the top part on over the leather. Then you just need a hold on the leather that will fit over the ball. These are the items you will need for the pencil case:

Pattern (SVG, PDF)
Leather
4 small rivets
1 skull rivet, button snap or button stud
1 hair tie (if you are using the skull rivet, I used a plain black hair tie to wrap around it)