Learn To Make Leather Links For Jewelry

 

Leather Infinity Links Video Workshop

by Tracy Statler

Leather in accessories is hot, hot, hot! I think I've said this before, but it's worth repeating. If you want to make chic jewelry that's in demand now, consider incorporating some leather into your designs. Leather is a wonderful material to work with and it adds texture and interest to your jewelry. My stylish friend and book contributor, Tracy Statler is currently offering a video tutorial on how to make these fun leather infinity links. These components are a versatile way to add leather to your jewelry. Incorporate them into bracelets, necklaces and even earrings.

In this video tutorial, Tracy takes you step-by-step through the process of creating her innovative beaded leather infinity links. She also provides you with a handy supply list and helpful tips and tricks to make creating these cool components much easier.  Tracy is available for questions and support, if you need it. She does allow designers to sell jewelry that is created from her tutorial, which in my book is a huge plus and very generous! There's even an option to pin and share your designs on a Pinterest gallery board that Tracy has created specially for those that purchase her tutorial. That's a great way to connect, share and promote your jewelry!

Click Here To Purchase

You can purchase Tracy's video tutorial through her blog, Make Bracelets! I highly recommend that you check it out.

Oh, and as if you needed any more eye candy or convincing, below are more examples of Tracy's work showing the versatility of her leather technique. If there are any designers to keep your eye on, it's this girl. She's a phenomenal, high-quality fashion jewelry designer that enjoys sharing professional tips and tricks, knowledge and supply resources, teaching and writing jewelry-making tutorials and how-tos. What more could you possibly ask for? Do your- jewelry-making-self good and join her on her blog here.

I hope you enjoy her inspiration. I know I do!

Bracelet by Tracy Statler

Tracy Statler Designs

Marigold Sky Bracelet

Marigold Sky

Leather and Silk Bracelet by Erin Siegel 

I made this little number last night. It's my first design in a series for the new ArtBeads.Com Fall Design Challenge! I love these design challenges from artbeads. I get to try some ideas or jewelry supplies that I might not think of otherwise. For this challenge, the designers were encouraged to use 'Colors of Fall' in our jewelry creations. I chose to be inspired by the 'Fall 2010 Pantone Color Report' for my designs. This bracelet features 'Patone Colors' Lagoon, Golden Glow, Chocolate Truffle, and Oyster Gray. Interesting combination, but I think it works! 

The items I used from art beads are:

2mm Chocolate Brown Leather

100% Silk Beading Cord in Amber

Antique Silver Square Filigree Button

Thanks for looking! Happy Fall Beading! :)


Disclaimer: Artbeads.com has sent me the above mentioned beads, pendants, materials and/or findings to create with as part of their design partner blog program. I have not been paid by Artbeads.com to participate. Thank you.

September Earrings

Leather, wood beads and Prenite nuggets.

These earrings remind me of September days. That transition from Summer to Fall. Here, I used greens of the Summer season mixed with wood and earthy muted tones to suggest a change to Autumn weather and fashion! Happy September!

Leather and Stone Earring Series

New earring designs! These are fun to make and fun to wear! They are so lightweight. I love wearing a bold pair of earrings like this with my hair up. What's your favorite earring style? Do you like big and bold or discreet and petite? Or maybe somewhere in the middle? Do tell!

Plums & Grasses Necklace

The theme for this month's Artbeads.com design partner blog program is Summer! Summer places, Summer activities or just the season in general. One of my favorite places to visit here during the Summer months is Plum Island, known for the beach plums that still grow on it.  It's a small barrier island off the Massachusetts east coast. I decided to use this place as my inspiration as I choose my materials from Artbeads.com.

This Sea Grass ceramic pendant by Marsha Neal, reminds me of the tall, green grasses that grow along the outskirts of the sandy beaches. A sterling silver dragonfly charm accents the pendant, as dragonflies flutter about these tall grasses. I tied up the pendant and charm with three strands of these plum/iris matte glass seed beads for a bail. Next, I picked out this fancy, plum-dyed silk satin cord to represent the plums that grow on bushes along the island. This silk cord came stuffed with chiffon. I un-stuffed it, so I could thread a section of silk onto this dark brown leather cord for the necklace. I wire-wrapped the silk section to the leather cord with a little sterling silver wire. I wanted to add a rustic touch to contrast with the silk and give the necklace a more casual feel. I left most of the leather cord showing and finished the the ends off with a simple loop and bead closure. Now, I'm ready for my walk along Plum Island!

Disclaimer: Artbeads.com has sent me the above mentioned beads, pendants, and/or findings to create with as part of their design partner blog program. I have not been paid by Artbeads.com to participate. Thank you.

Beaded Leather Cuff

I love, love, love the look of leather cuffs! They are so popular in fashion jewelry right now. I wanted to try my hand at making my own version. I ended up with this little number right here! It's so soft and comfy to wear! I know little about leather working, it's something I'd be very interested in learning sometime. I just fudged around a little to make this one. I did have a pretty clear plan of how I was going to go about making it and just followed that all the way through.

I picked up some nice genuine leather scraps I found at the craft store and some heavy-duty closure snaps from the fabric store. I wanted a leather punch to make holes in the leather for the beads, but the ones I saw were way to large for what I needed for this project. I ended up using a tiny, tiny paper punch that I had already. This hole punch makes about a 1mm hole. It worked OK, not great, but doable.

The first thing I did to make the cuff was I made myself a template out of some card stock. I measured everything out VERY carefully, including extra space at the ends for the snap closure and measuring and marking out all of the holes along the cuff for the beading. This cuff is 1" wide and 71/2'' long, but fits like a 7" because of the snap overlap. Once I had my template measured out perfect, I cut it out and punched out the hole marks on the template. Then, I traced the template onto the wrong side of the leather and marked all of the holes with a pen. I cut the leather out with just a nice pair of fabric shears, cuts like a dream! Then, I just punched out the hole marks with that little paper punch, cleaned up the holes a little with a small pair of sewing scissors and added on the heavy-duty fabric snap, following the directions it came with. Now, I had my leather cuff base! Lastly, I threaded some waxed linen cord through the holes and tied on some Sodalite roundels and Thai silver accent beads with square knots and frayed the ends of the linen. 

Suede Leather Earrings

I've been playing around with some suede lacing! A bit of an experiment that turned out well! ;) These were fun to make.  I love the combination of the suede, sterling silver and beads. You can see a few more pairs I made on my flickr page. The leather adds earthy, natural texture that I just love to bring into my designs. I hope to incorporate this in some other ways in the future!