Micro Kombucha Wallet
Introduction
The Micro Kombucha wallet is made with what is called vegan leather, this leather is actually a type of cellulose produced by a colony of bacteria and yeasts that grow on the surface of the probiotic known as Kombucha. This vegan leather closely resembles animal leather in color and texture. Extremely resistant, this pulp is an excellent sustainable alternative to the use of animal leather, paper and cardboard.
In this tutorial I wanted to further explore the unique characteristics of bacterial cellulose and used an after-treatment to purify and make the cellulose stronger, thinner and more transparent. With that I was able to explore the options for applying colors to the material.
This treatment and purification can be seen in this video below and is recommended for those who want a multicolored wallet.
This Instructables is based on my first experience in growing and using vegan leather to make alternative objects to animal leather. My first experience was with creating a Portfolio, and being seen in this Instructables:
https: //www.instructables.com/id/Kombucha-Wallet / ...
To save time, I recommend that you look first and pay attention to the growing part of bacterial cellulose in Step 1 and drying process, Step 2 of my first Instructables.
First, we need to grow our vegan leather in a container of at least 21cm x 18cm of area at the base by 12cm in height.Using these dimensions, to obtain a suitable thickness for our design, we need at least 3 liters of culture medium.
3 liters of filtered water 300 g of crystal sugar 3 green tea bags 300 ml of apple cider vinegar 1 Scoby (symbolic culture of bacteria and yeasts) Important Only add the Scoby after the temperature drops below 30 degrees Celsius. Boil the water, extinguish the heat, add the sugar until dissolved and add the tea bags.
Here I have a basic video where I show you how to prepare 10 liters of culture medium to grow your kombucha.
After a temperature drops below 30 degrees Celcius, add the vinegar and the SCOBY, place it inside the container and cover it with a paper or a cloth stretched to avoid the contamination of its culture. Keep your Kombucha culture at a temperature between 25 and 30 degrees Celcius for maximum yield. After 2-3 weeks, develop a gelatin about 1cm thick on the surface. Remove and wash with running water and soap with caring. Then dry in a piece of wood, the wood should be a plate or board, not varnished or sealed to help absorb water during drying in a ventilated place .. PS: SCOBY(Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast) or mother culture can be obtained in two ways: you can receive a donation from someone who grows Kombucha or buys it over the internet.
Supplies
Now that you've cultivated your kombucha leaf, treated, purified, colored and dried, it's time to make our ecological micro wallet.
The sheet needed to make our micro wallet must have the size of half a sheet of A4 paper which has the following dimensions: 210mm x 297mm.
Our sheet must be 210mm x 148.5mm. I recommend that before using combucha leather you use a sheet of paper to train the fabrication.To attach some parts we will need 3 strips of 15mm wide with lengths of 105mm, 105mm and 75mm respectively.
List of tools:
1-A scissors, stylet or rotary cutter
2-Cutting base
3-Glue for paper, but I think you won't need it for kombucha leather
4-Steel ruler
5-a pencil or pen for markings
6-binder clip, or pegs or paper clips
Cutting, Folding and Pasting
Follow the fold and glue markings in the photo sequence.
We have a video here to help you better understand how it's done. In the final part, after everything is ready, use a paste of carnauba wax to waterproof your micro wallet and it will be ready to us