We, creative people, love it if something is visually attractive. When you make something, you don’t just want it to be practical but also prettttyyyyy :)!!! As you could have read in my blog post from a while back, “how-to-brand-your-brand” I describe that this process doesn’t stop that once your product is finished. No, the manner in which you present it to your customer, the packaging, the personal thank you note etcetera… matters almost as much. Luckily with Christmas most people (or the shops) go that extra mile and make your present a little work of art for underneath the Christmas tree. Well, you should too and read on to learn how to make this little leather Christmas bow from scraps!
What do you need:
- Scrap leather (FINALLY let’s decrease this pile …)
- 1 Rivet (I used one with a stalk of about 10mm and a head of 7 mm)
- Hole punch (with a diameter large enough for the stalk of the rivet)
- Cutting mat
- Punching board
- Mallet
- Safety beveler
- Stanly knife or Japanese leather knife
Step 1: Cut and skive those loops
The first step is to cut the scrap leather in three little strips of 1 cm x 12 cm and 1 of 1cm x 5cm for the middle loop. Depending on the thickness of your leather you should see if your rivet is large enough to hold all the layers of the bow. My leather was quite thick so I skived it down with a safety beveler to about 1-2 mm thickness.
Step 2: Punch to make some leather confetti
The next step is to punch the holes that go over the rivet to form the little-collected Christmas bow. I’m sorry I see that one of those little strips on the image has some crooked hole punching but luckily you didn’t see it in the end result… I’m not perfect yet… hahaha but let’s continue.
You should punch three holes in the longer strips, one at each end and one in the middle. For the smaller strip, you should only punch them at the ends as you can see in the image below.
Step 3: Time to make some little eight-shaped bows
This is to moment to get your rivet and start gathering the strips together. First, you place one end of the strip on the rivet stalk, fold it ’till the middle hole lines up and then to the same for the other end. Eventually, it should look like something an eight or at least as the image below.
Time for the second strip. Do exactly the same as in the paragraph above but turn it 1/6 of a circle to the right or left. The result should look like this:
You already guessed it, right? Repeat this all one more time for the fifth and sixth peddle of the leather Christmas bow or flower. And once again it should look like the image below at this stage:
Last but not least, get the smallest strip and place it as a little loop over the rest of the folded leather strips. This might be tricky since the stack is getting bigger and bigger on the stalk but this was the last one.
Step 4: Set the rivet
This is the last step to create our little extra on our Christmas presents. Time to hold every together and set the rivet. Get your rivet cap and place it over the stalk. I’ve got a hand press to set the rivet (more about this since I’m so excited I’ve got one!!! ) but you would also set the rivet by hand with the corresponding tools. Were done already… wasn’t that a quick DIY. Even a now sew DIY, although I promised to never post one….I just couldn’t resist these little cuties!
Are you also one of those people who make those little presents such beauties it is almost a shame to open them? I try it every year but maybe I’ll succeed with this little leather Christmas bow this year! And even when Christmas is over this is a great way to decrease your scrap pile and update your presents or packaging, don’t you think? Also great for Sinterklaas this evening (a Dutch holiday) but you have to be quick! Fijne Sinterklaas allemaal!
P.S. The mini Christmas pop up online shop is open. Don’t want to make your laser engraved Coasters your self, I love to make them for you! Click here to go directly to the shop.
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