DIY: Personalized Leather Key Tags & Bracelets

My favorite DIY projects are the ones that can be completed in about an hour or less.

I also love making things that are simple, fun and that can be shared as gifts.

When my son's 13th birthday party plans rolled around and I was, once again, without any clever ideas for party favors that didn't involve a bunch of junk from the Dollar Tree, I decided we would make each attendee a personalized leather gift.

I bought this kit from my local craft store about a year ago with a 40% off coupon and made myself and my son leather wristbands.

I wear mine literally ALL the time.

For the party favors I wanted to add a little bit more embellishment.

This kit (with 40% off again) came with keychains and I thought they would be perfect for the boys.

Even if they don't have keys I figured they could attach it to a backpack to make it more easily identifiable.

Or they can throw them at each other like arrowheads or darts because throwing stuff at each other seems to be something boys really like to do.

The kit only came with enough tags for the boys so, for the girls, I chose leather wristbands because I love my own so much.

Here's the super simple process that even monkeys 

(or your 18 year old and almost 13 year old) 

can do:

Step 1)
Dampen your leather with a wet washcloth.
I don't have a photo of this step because it's pretty self explanatory.

Step 2)
Using your leather tooling kit and a rubber mallet, stamp your design into the leather.
(I found that tapping the tooling wand 15 times for each stamp was ideal.)

Step 3)
Let leather dry.

Drying

Step 4)
Dye your leather the color of your choice or just use a leather conditioner to seal it.
You can purchase both at the craft store.

I use a special tool called, 'paper towel' to apply my leather dye.

Step 5)
Let the dye dry completely.

Dry and ready!

Step 6) OPTIONAL

After ours were dry I decided to add a little color to our designs using Sharpie.

It worked great!

The kits can be pricey, especially if you don't use a 40% off coupon, but you can use them again and again to make other great tooled leather pieces.

Even with the cost of an additional kit I think I actually spent less than I normally would on Dollar Tree items that would end up thrown away after about 5 minutes.

And these are a lot more fun for your tribe to make!

À la vie et à l'amour

-Cortney