Leather Craft: Recycle Your Rubbish and Turn It into a Luxury Bracelet (Skillshare)

In this class you will: Learn to create a luxury looking unisex bracelet from upcycled leather using basic tools; Learn simple but effective folding technique which could be later applied to any type of materials such as leather, cotton, faux leather, ribbons etc; Find out my simple trick of neatly finishing the leather piece; No prior experience is required, the class is for beginners as well as advanced students; Create three bracelets in same technique but different widths and colors; Develop a creative and attentive eye and soon you will start noticing useful and inspiring ‘rubbish’ that could be recycled for creative purposes; Get the list of my favorite destinations for sourcing materials.

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The assignment starts with finding a leather object which could be recycled for the creation of your bracelets.

You might think why bother and look for an old material if I can simply and quickly buy a new piece of leather??? I promise you, there is no better feeling than the realisation that your new piece of jewellery did not pollute the planet, but actually helped cleaning it by recycling some old materials!

- Have a look at your closet, basement, and storage to see what you can find there: it could be a piece of clothing with an interesting texture or pattern. Perhaps a tie? Or an old bag… even shoes?!

- Ask family and friends, I’m sure someone will have a piece of garment to donate.

- Take your chance to visit local second-hand store or a vintage market. I would look for bigger size jackets, as you would get more leather out of one piece.

- Search online: Ebay, Vinted, Etsy, Wallapop, Poshmark… (use keywords like: vintage leather jacket, biker jacket etc….)

- By doing this exercise you will develop an eagle eye and you will quickly start noticing so many materials, shapes and textures around you!

- Share a photo of your findings in the comment section. I am excited to see what objects you will find!

The project gets even more exciting when you start folding your leather and combining it with ribbon to create a beautiful piece of jewellery. You will be surprised what a beautiful new shape the piece of leather gets and that it is the same piece of old material which you started your project with.

Hint: I love to use a contrast colour ribbon to make my bracelets more fun and wearable from both sides.

Let me see how you transform your unwanted leather pieces into braiding!

Tools:

Good thing about this project is that you need only basic tools which are inexpensive and easy to get. The materials here are listed for 1 piece of bracelet.

1. Piece of carton for creating a template

2. Fabric Scissors and small craft scissors

3. Ruler

4. Fabric glue

5. Tape Measure

6. Masking Tape

7. Medium brush for glue

8. Pencil or pen

9. Punch hole

10. Lighter

11. Cotton or other ribbon about 35cm long (my favourites are grosgrain, herringbone, petersham and bias binding ribbons).

12. 1 x Swivel Hook Clasp

13. 1 x D-ring

14. 13-20 x metal frames

15. 4 x Rivets

16. Mallet

17. Rivet setting tool

18. Hand press punch machine