Upcycled Leather Jewelry

 I'm super duper excited to share a little project I did for my mom for mother's day!
For obvious reasons I had to wait until she got it before I could share it on here...(she takes top ranking-along with my hubs-as one of my first and most loyal readers)

FYI: I am not a jewelry maker. The few attempts I have made over the years have ended in utter failure, but when I spied a pile of leather scraps (from another project that's in the works), immediately I envisioned a leather bracelet. Don't ask me why, but as soon as I started brainstorming I couldn't stop thinking about it and I knew it was what I wanted to do for my mom for Mother's Day.  

I drew up several ideas- originally I wanted to incorporate pictures of all the grand kids or their birthstones, but couldn't find what I needed here in town. So onto plan B- I raided my jewelry box. I had plenty of broken necklaces to choose from (does anyone else hoard broken necklaces in hopes you might fix them someday?) and settled on some faux turquoise beads. I knew my mom would love it! She loves turquoise and has some amazing turquoise jewelry. My favorite is her antique silver and turquoise cuff (seriously beautiful!!). She also has a Vera Bradley bag in Totally Turq , that my sisters and I got her a few years ago. 
I was able to dye the leather- I will do a tutorial on this soon! I then cut the leather and attached the beads. I need some real jewelry tools, I think it would have gone much smoother if I had them. Luckily, my hubby was able to help me figure out how to attach the snaps, since I didn't buy the tool I needed to do that, either.
The bracelet with the cut outs was my practice one. I didn't end up giving to her since its kinda wonky, but it gave me lots of ideas for even more styles of leather jewelry.

I'm obsessed. For real. I love working with leather and I feel like I have only just scratched the surface on design ideas. I have a note book that is slowly being filled with drawings of bracelets. What do you think!? Maybe this is something I will add to my Etsy shop once I get the hang of it!


mop it up mondays feature

Suburbsmama

1 comment :

  1. Cute and a great idea for using those scraps and jewelry pieces!
    Liz

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