Scrap Leather Necklace

Recently, out of curiosity, I tried to see if my die cutter could cut through leather. I have been able to cut six pieces of paper at once, so I thought it could handle the thickness of leather.

It could! This opened a whole new world for me as I was trying to find new ways to work with leather in my jewelry. I have so many fun shapes of dies that I've used in my mixed-media art which would be great in jewelry design.

With this design I wanted to use up some scrap leather I had, especially the costly mistakes. I also wanted to test the limits of the die cutter on leather. I know the really thick leather won't work, but how thick is too thick? And should I stick to basic shapes or can I get elaborate? Also, are there certain dies that are too complicated to work? 

Let's find out!

Materials

• 0.4mm thick leather scraps (NOTE: that's POINT 4 not 4mm — it's less than half one millimeter)
• Beads to match leather (Steps 1 and 7 go over the beads)
• Seven 2" long eye pins (Nine if doing earrings)
• Aleene's Leather & Suede Glue
• Necklace chain with links you can fit jump rings into
• 20 jump rings — they can all be 8mm or you can do thirteen 6mm and seven 8mm ones. If your necklace clasp has a ring to connect to, you only need six 8mm jump rings. You'll need more if you plan to make matching earrings (Step 9).
• Necklace clasp
• Earring wires (optional, for making matching earrings)

Tools

• Die cutter (a manual hand-crank one)
• Dies (look for Sizzix die sets but make sure to read Step 1 on what will work)
• Sharp scissors
• Leather hole punch or awl and hammer
• Round-nose pliers
• Chain-nose pliers
• Side cutters

How thick can it cut?

I had some 5" square pieces of leather I bought at Michael's that I used for another project that didn't go as planned. I was attempting to cut shapes using my laser cutter (which is really low power), and though it could cut the leather, I hadn't lined it up exactly right and made some mistakes. So, now I had this leather that had been cut into, but not used. 

Using the die cutter is much easier to set up, more precise because I know exactly where I'm putting the die, quicker, and healthier because it doesn't put smoke in the air. 

But can the die cutter cut the leather? I've put a stack of 6 papers in the die cutter to cut one shape in 6 different colors. That's a thick stack. Sometimes the cut made it through all 6 layers and sometimes only 5. The thinnest leather scrap I have is less than half a millimeter. It should work, but leather is not paper, so the only way to know is to test it.

I used a small circle die and a thin purple leather. I put the leather on the bottom plate of my die cutter, put the die on top, placed the top plate on, and rolled it through the machine. Success! It didn't even struggle and cut cleanly. 

So, how about thicker leather? I tried a scrap of brown that was closer to a millimeter but not quite. The machine cut most of the shape, but not all. I had to use my scissors to cut it away completely. 

How ornate can it cut?

Now I needed to test the limits of the leather itself. I have some super fancy dies with swirls and leaves. They have some pretty thin areas. Will the leather tear if cut too thin? 

Yes, yes it will. The issue was more that the really thin areas just couldn't cut the leather no matter how thin the leather was. I wonder if it shifted around too much to make a clean cut? I don't know, but I do know it didn't work.

So how thin can I go to get a clean cut? I tried a swirly one that had thin areas but not less than a millimeter (the same swirls you see in the final necklace) and that worked! That was exciting because these are super pretty swirls!

Can I make an impression?

Next I tested if I could emboss the leather like I do paper. I had a flower die that looks like a dahlia to me. It has one outer cutting surface and the rest is raised areas that emboss flower petals inside that cut shape. I tried this on a gold scrap and that turned out beautifully! I also tested a circle that had stitching marks on it (you can see both of these in the second photo above). 

And just for fun, I tried a trick I use with paper where I have a cut piece of card stock with a rose pattern that embosses the design into the paper. I ran it through using my embossing pad on a tan piece of leather and it made a slight impression of the pattern across the whole surface. I will likely find a way to improve upon and use this technique in a later project.

Embellishments

So, now I know which leather scraps I can use based on what the die cutter can cut. I have purple, black, gold, and bronze at my disposal. The purple is limited. The gold was a full square until I performed those tests, but I intend to use those in the final design so I don't waste anything. The black is super limited. The bronze is a full 5" square. 

Using all four colors would be too much, and since the black is super limited and wouldn't stand out against the purple, I put that back in my pile for another day. I will use the purple as accent color but also plan to bring it out with purple beads. 

If you saw my Instructable on using up my mismatched purple beads, you'll know I have tons of purple beads. However, I want this design to focus on the leather pendants and not the beads, so I headed to the craft store for more uniform shapes that will accent the necklace, not take over the show.

There I found some round purple amethyst beads, some matte gold finish diamond shaped beads, and a lovely iridescent bead that showed a combination of purple and gold (how fortuitous!). In certain light it also glitters. I also got more chain with links large enough to put jump rings through. 

I almost always have a stash of wire, eye pins, jump rings, clasps, and other necessary necklace supplies at home in bronze, brass, gold, silver, copper, and antiqued silver, so I'm pretty set there.

Tips on finding leather

I found leathers thin enough in a pack of 5" squares at Michael's. You can probably search your favorite craft and hobby shop for some. If you do a Google search for 0.4mm (make sure to add the zero or it will show you 4mm) craft leather, you'll find some shops online. You can also search Etsy and contact the makers directly to make certain you are getting a thin leather.

I had already determined I could use the purple only as an accent since there wasn't much of it. So I came up with a design using smaller dies for the purple and bigger shapes for the other colors. Since I ended up testing die cuts in the gold, that limited me on what I had left and how I could design for that. The test pieces would end up in the final necklace to keep from wasting any material. 

At first I put some dies down on a piece of paper along with some of the test pieces to try to come up with some way to work those into the design. I knew the swirls needed to be part of the bigger pendant because it's the focal point and those swirls have a huge WOW factor. Because they're wispy, I decided those would be best glued to something. 

Since I had circle shapes cut out of the purple and gold already, I figured I could use a big circle in the middle. That could be the bronze color since I haven't cut into that one yet. I had the gold dahlia shape, so I figured that could sit on top of the big circle, accented by the gold swirls on the sides. 

To use the purple and gold smaller circles I cut, I decided they could be part of some side accent pendants on the chain.

I started tracing the dies to see how the design was looking so far. I figured it best to draw up something so I don't waste any leather trying out different looks.

Because I had the gold dahlia in use, I decided to carry out the floral theme and put a flower under that, probably in purple, to add more layers to the pendant and separate the two metal colors.

Then I traced two leaf shapes under the big circle and one leaf under the smaller circle accents.

After I drew up the main shapes, I wanted to start thinking about how the rest of the necklace would look. I wanted to incorporate some of those new beads I bought for it, obviously. 

I knew the main pendant and the accent leather pieces would need some space between them, so that's where I drew the beads along the chain. Beads strung on an eye pin would provide more stability and maintain the space between the leather pieces better.

I cut out the pieces I knew would remain in the design and laid them all out on the drawing I created. For my swirly piece, the die set I have actually has an opposite facing swirl I could use, but if it hadn't I would have flipped the leather over to cut the same shape backwards. 

Some of the pieces didn't cut cleanly so I trimmed the fuzziness on the edges with a sharp pair of thread scissors.

I'm limited on purple leather and didn't know which flower shape I wanted under the dahlia on the large pendant. So, I decided to cut a few flower shapes from a dark purple paper to try them out. I made sure the dies I used would fit on the remaining purple I have.

I tried every one and just didn't see anything I liked. The dahlia was just too big for the purple flowers underneath. So I removed the dahlia and put one of the small purple circles on top of a paper flower. I thought that looked a lot better. I curled the petals of the paper flower because I know I can do that with leather. I cut a small gold circle to place on top and I loved it. I guess the dahlia will have to wait for another project.

I cut the flower from the purple leather and because I had this tiny butterfly die and a small triangle of purple left, I cut the tiny butterfly too. I may not use it for this project, but I'll sure try.

I knew wet-molding leather was a thing, but I've never tried it before. I looked up a YouTube video and asked Google lots of questions before starting. 

First I soaked the leather flower in a small dish of warm water for much longer than I intended. I needed to run out of the house for a bit, but it was good and soaked when I got back. In the video I watched, the leather crafter said when it stops bubbling that means all the air in the leather has been replaced by water and is ready. 

I pulled it out and patted it a bit with a towel so it wasn't dripping. Then I folder it over the top of a thumb tack facing down so all the petals come up when glued onto the big circle. I used a blow dryer while holding the petals down to dry it. A few forums I read said this would harden the leather, which is what I want so I went for it. I knew the hair dryer would be hot on my fingers but I only held it for a little bit at a time just to get a nice bowl shape.

Then to curl the ends of the petals, I used my round-nose pliers, folded one part of a petal over it, and pressed it against the thumb tack while I dried it with my hair dryer (see fourth photo above). I kept going around and around to all the petals a few times until the curls started taking hold. When I pretty happy with all the curls, I flipped the flower upside down to dry overnight on top of the thumb tack. I pressed all the petals in again to help maintain the bowl shape.

Big Pendant

I did the easiest first and glued the small gold circle in the middle of my molded flower using Aleene's Leather & Suede Glue. 

I decided it might be easiest to place the gold swirly things on the big circle more accurately if I glued them on first. I applied a little bit of leather glue to the back of the tips that I knew would go on top of the bronze circle. I put it on, readjusted a little, and pressed down. Then I cleaned the glue that squeezed out with my fingernail and the end of an eye pin. I didn't want to use a needle or straight pin because the sharp points might damage the leather.

Then I did the other side trying my best to align it in the same way. The glue dries relatively fast so my swirly on the right side is not exactly in the same place as the one on the left, but it won't be incredibly noticeable when I'm wearing it.

I forgot to punch holes through the purple leaves before gluing them together, so I used an awl to punch through both layers. Then I was able to use my 1mm hole punch to create a bigger hole to loop a jump ring through later. 

I used a scrap piece of wood under the awl or hole puncher to protect my table. I just put those where I wanted the hole, and hammered them. I usually hammer three times just to be sure the hole is punched through.

I played around with the placement of the flower and that little butterfly I cut out on a whim. I had planned to put the flower near the top, but with that butterfly, I thought it looked best to move the flower closer to the leaves at the bottom and put the butterfly closer to the top, sort of off-center.

Then I rotated the big circle with all its pieces glued on so I could punch holes at the top and bottom directly across from each other. I used a piece of paper as a straight edge to align the tops of the swirls. I eyeballed where I thought the mid-point was at the top between the swirls and punched a hole there. Then I used a straight edge to divide the circle in halves to help me locate the mid-point at the bottom where I punched another hole. 

Accent leather pendants

I thought it best to punch holes at the tops before gluing the circles together. The hole at the bottom of the larger purple circle can be punched later. It's helpful to wait to do that anyway because it's easier to line up the holes once all the pieces are on.

I first punched the top hole in the large purple circle. Then I placed it on top of the gold one, lining them up at top, and marked a dot with a pen through the center of the hole in the purple piece. When I tried this same tactic to mark the smaller purple circle, I couldn't see the dot, so I used the awl to poke the spot where I could punch a bigger hole. I punched all the holes, then glued all the pieces together making sure the holes all lined up. 

Then with those in place, I used a piece of paper to help me line up the lower hole on the big purple circle and punched it. Finally, I punched holes at the top of the bronze leaves.

We'll attach all the pieces in Step 8 after we make our bead sections.

I printed out the layout I created in Step 4 (first photo) as a guide.

For leather pieces

I have purple seed beads that I put on top and bottom of the bigger beads that will hang above the leather pendants. I took an eye pin, put a seed bead on, then the bigger beads (the purple-gold iridescent ones on the sides and the amethyst one in the middle), then another seed bead. 

Then I formed another loop on top so I could hang these from the chain. You can see how to do that in Diagram 1 above (second image) or in the first photo, a collage of the steps explained below. 

Hold your pin vertically so the beads are as far down as they can go. Bend the wire at the top to a 90-degree angle, making sure to bend it parallel to the loop at the bottom (holding the lower loop with chain nose pliers helps with this).

Cut the wire with your side cutters so that only about 3/8" (or about 10mm) is left. I find it helpful to cup my hand over the wire as I'm cutting it because it tends to shoot off if I don't find a way to block it. You can use these cut off sections of wire for practice rolling the loop if you need it. Or you can use them to make shorter eye pins for other projects.

Take your round-nose pliers, grasp the end of the wire and start rolling it back toward the beads. You'll form a J shape at first. 

If our wrists could rotate 360 degrees we could just roll it all the way in one step, but we can't. So you readjust your round-nose pliers, grasp the middle of the curve you've started and keep rolling toward the center. Make sure that the end of the wire tucks neatly back in the center near the hole in the top bead. If the wire in the beads bowed during the process, grasp the loops with chain nose pliers on either end and adjust them until the wire is straight again.

For chain sections

You'll put the chain sections together similarly but with different and more beads (unless you're making yours shorter). I like to create a symmetrical design, starting with the smallest beads on the outside. I put my matte gold color beads on the outside, then the iridescent ones, then the big amethyst one in the middle. I formed the loop on the other side and set it aside to make more. I made four sections in total, two for each side of the chain.

The 2" long eye pins were just barely long enough for me to fit all the beads on and leave room for the loop on the other side. It made the necklace longer but I would have been sad not to use up the beads I just bought.

Completing leather pendants

I started easy by connecting the leather leaves to the leather pendants using 8mm jump rings (see Diagram 2 in the second photo above for the correct way to open a jump ring to help keep its shape).

I decided I would use the 8mm jump rings for connecting pieces to leather (either other leather pieces or bead sections), and the 6mm jump rings to connect the chain to the bead sections and to the necklace clasp. I also needed to use an 8mm ring for the necklace clasp to hook onto since it didn't come with a partner.

Next I connected the short bead sections to the tops of pendants they went with using 8mm jump rings. 

Completing chain

To determine how much chain to put in the center, I laid it above the large leather pendant and put a beaded chain section on either side. I knew I would need to allow plenty of space so the smaller leather pendants won't cover the large one. It looked like a length of about 2.5" would be good. I used my side cutters to cut the chain. I made sure first that I had an odd number of chain links, because I will be attaching the large pendant to the link directly in the middle. 

For the chain sections between the bead sections, I cut lengths of 5 chain links (about 3/4" long). I needed an odd number of links for these sections to connect the smaller leather pendants in the center.

Then I cut the longer chain sections. I measured these to fit me comfortably by wrapping the chain from the middle of the back of my neck to about where the outer bead section should lay on my chest. This was a total guess at this point, but I figured I could shorten the chain later if I needed to. Then I cut two this length. It helps to hold the cut chain up vertically to measure the exact length. I hung it on the end of a pin and put the uncut chain next to it on the pin. Then I smoothed them down next to each other to see exactly which chain link I need to mark to cut the second one. 

I used two 6mm jump rings to connect the necklace clasp to the end of one long chain section and an 8mm jump ring to the end of the other long chain section.

Then I connected two bead sections to either end of the 2.5" chain section using 6mm jump rings. Next I connected both short chain sections to the opposite ends of those bead sections using 6mm jump rings. Finally I attached the remaining two bead sections between those short chain sections and the long chain sections using 6mm jump rings. Now that the necklace part was complete, I could connect the leather pendants.

However, when I was done making the full chain, I realized it was much too long for me. As I said before, I was totally guessing at the side length anyway. So I put the necklace on and pulled it up where it was more comfortable, then I pinched the chain together behind my neck where I should be trimming it. I pulled it back off, marked the chain with painter's tape, took the clasp parts off and shortened the chain on both sides, making sure they were the same length. Then I put the clasp parts back on.

Attach leather pendants

NOW I could finally attach the leather pendants.

I found the center link of each section (easier done with the shortest ones). For the 2.5" one, I just counted them to make certain. Then I opened 6mm jump rings and connected the tops of the bead sections from the leather pendants to those middle links.

I had plenty of beads, eye pins, and jump rings left over, plus enough bronze leather to make matching earrings. And I have tons of earring wires in my stash to match every metal color I have.

I made dangles just like I did the long bead sections on the chain. I cut two small leaves from the bronze leather using my die cutting machine and punched holes in the tops. 

I used two jump rings to connect the leaves to the bottom of the bead dangles so they would hang correctly. I attached an 8mm jump ring to the leather leaf, then connected that ring to the bottom of the bead dangle with a 6mm ring. Then I connected earring wires to the tops of the bead dangles using 6mm jump rings.

Now we're ready to wear these out on the town. The molded flower on the main pendant holds its shape really well. Now that I know I can cut and emboss leather using my die cutter, there's a whole new world of possibilities out there for me to explore. I hope you will explore those possibilities too!