Leather Box or Pencil Pot

Easy to make, this leather box can be design in different sizes. Without the lid, it can also be a pencil pot

• Vegetable Tanned Natural Leather, thickness 2 mm
• Cutter
• Revolving Leather Hole Punch
• Leather Edge dye
• Paintbrush
• Leather thread
• Needles
• Pen writing on leather

You will need to cut out 4 parts to build the box (only the two first parts for the pencil pot) :

1. one circle for the bottom of the box (1) with diamètre D_b,
2. a rectangle for the side of the box (2) with length equal to 3.14 x D_b, hence the circumference of (1). The height H can be chosen and will correspond to the height of the box.
3. one circle for the top of the lid (3) with diameter D_l, D_l = D_b+4mm for a 2mm thick leather. In this way, the lid is gonna go around the side of the box perfectly. It's better to make it slightly bigger if you have a doubt to make sure it fits.
4. another rectangle for the border of the lid (4) with length equal to 3.14 x D_l. This part can have its bottom border shape customized, as done here.

Here the dimension chosen are : D_b = 80mm ; H = 90mm ; D_l = 84mm.

A paper template is made of all the parts.

The template parts are reported on leather as shown on the pictures and then cut with the cutter. For a better finish, the edges of the leather are colored using the paintbrush with a Leather Edge dye, as shown on the picture.

Both for sawing and decoration, holes are punched into the leather. A revolving leather hole punch is used for that. The hole are 2.5mm diameter and spaced appart by 5mm. To make sur they are aligned, a cardboard guide is used, as shown on the picture. The revolving leather hole punch is placed against it to push the holes. To make sure the 5mm spacing is right, a graduated ruler could also be used as a guide.

You must make sure that the number of holes on the sides that are going to be sewn together is identical. If not, there is a place of the sawing that is gonna look awkward. You can refer to the following picture of the parts ready for assembly

Here are the parts ready for assembly.

First, the side of the box (2) is sewn on itself as shown on the pictures. There is a needle at each tip of the thread in order to do a symmetrical sawing. The middle of the thread is placed in the inside and each needle go from inside to outside through the holes, then they cross at the outside and come back in the inside through the holes. By repeating this gesture, you get a cross pattern on the outside, as shown on the picture, and a linear pattern in the inside.

Then, the bottom of the box can be assembled to its side with a simple sawing point by going in one hole with the thread and out the opposite hole, as shown on the picture.

The same sawing is made for the lid.

Here is the end result !