I didn’t know how beautiful leather rings look on your fingers until I made a few. Once again I was looking at stuff floating around in my craft room trying to come up with ideas of what to make with things I’ve already got.
As I make all of my families shoes, you can imagine how much scrap leather I’ve collected over the years. Lots of pieces too small to make anything with, or so I thought.
Leather rings, of course, are a great way to use up tiny pieces of leather, I could make hundreds of them …
I decorated the rings with the batik technique, I wrote about this technique before in a tutorial on how to make a batik leather wallet. It shows pictures of me applying wax and dyes.
What you need to make a leather ring
- veg tan leather 1-2mm thick
- leather scissors
- edge slicker
- double cap rivets (I used brass antique 7x7mm) with anvil and setter
- hole punch
- mallet
- water-based leather dyes
- wax melting pot
- stiff paintbrushes to apply wax
- piece of sheep’s wool to apply the dye
- iron
- newspaper
- beeswax, natural leather finish
How to assemble the leather ring
- Make a paper pattern trying out different shapes, transfer the shape you like onto thin cardboard and cut it out
- Apply the batik technique on your piece of leather, more on batik in this tutorial
- Transfer the pattern onto the rough side of the leather drawing around it
- Cut out the ring and burnish its edges with the edge slicker
- Apply beeswax to the surface of the leather to protect it and beautify it even more
- Close the ring with a rivet using the setting tools
Here is a post about how to make leather cube earrings, another scrap leather project. To see more batik on leather check out my post on batik leather sandals.
Check out my Sandalmaking eBook, it explains general leathercraft techniques in more detail and besides you learn to make your own beautiful sandals!
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How do you set a rivet on a ring? I mean there is no clear shot to hammer the rivet in place as the leather covers it. Please demo or something?
Hi Mary, there are many tutorials on the net showing how to set a rivet in leather, you will need a rivet setting kit which comes with rivets, anvil and rivet setter. Please google it.
You could use a screw rivet holding the back with a small coin or use a well secured tiny anvil or ring triblet to hammer against. I think I would skive and sew like when making keepers for harness work.