Some years ago, I started working with leather to make BDSM gear for me and my wife. It was solid, but not so beautiful. After learning more by making leather belts and wallets, I came back to where I started, and I’m really happy with the result!

Showing off a bit. Curious what you think :)

I recently made these sheath and mask for my tools

I altered the glove, sadly not making them from scratch yet.

I’m going to the Texas renaissance festival in November and I’m making this armor chestplate for it. Last year it rained and I’m worried about it raining again, so I want to be able to protect my armor from it. I need the armor to hold its shape and stay firm while also not having a super glossy finish. If anyone can help that’d be much appreciated.

This really truly is my first thing made of leather. I am a collector of many hobbies and leather is the latest. I learned many things in this project and I look forward to the next one already.

Enjoy my Pancake.

Lessons learned in no particular order:

-Cut quality matters! I didn't use the right tool for my first cuts and it shows. After getting the wallet assembled, there was a lot of time and effort that then went into trying to get the edges flush and smooth.

-Raw hand alignment is hard. Yeah... I ended up saying screw it after the first side and I 3d printed a corner jig. The second side went WAY better. Faster, easier, cleaner.

-Eyeballing doesn't line things up. "Pancake" was eyeballed more or less, and it shows. "0 of 0" was ligned up on the score mark, and it shows.

-stamps take as many hits as needed and if it's too shallow, the detail disappears when it drys.

-Glue holds the pieces, but stitching keeps them there. The panels for the card slots are already cracking loose. I'll stitch them over the weekend and hopefully that solidifies the edges a little.

- finish the edges of all panels before final assembly. It's going to be way to hard to access the interior edges of the panels now, so this is just going to keep a raw edge.

-use a good template. I don't like the way certain features line up. The tan card slot isn't tall enough so that made fitment less forgiving and less aesthetic. I think it just needs a thicker line to break up the other panels.

I named this one "Pancake" because when making pancakes, the fist one always sucks. Its burnt or underdone. It's got a weird shape. Maybe it stuck to the pan. It always sucks but you have to make it anyways. It let's you get to the next Pancake and the next. They rest of the batch is better but first you have to make one that sucks.

Skills practiced/learned:

Literally everything

Cutting leather

Glue

Sand

Burnish

Stamping

Stitch punching and stitching (soon)

Like a lot of others, I started with a cheap set and I’m getting to where I need to replace tools like my beveler and I’m looking for a heavier mallet. There’s a list of other tools I need. What should I be upgrading to? Weaver had some master tool branded beveler that was $75. I’m sure that’s complete overkill, but I also don’t want to buy the $20 one from Amazon if it’s going to not be much better than the $1 one that came in the leather working kit I purchased originally. What’s the in between? There’s a lot of different retailers including Weaver, Tandy, Rocky Mountain, and more, but as someone that’s a relative beginner to leather working, I’m kind of just trying to go off price vs review quality without knowing much about brands.

Used leather honey and this happened, applied it 20 minutes ago, did I wipe away my leather in this area? Anybody know why it looks like this only in this spot?

I’m new to this all, I bought a lot of stuff and have two 10”x12” pieces of 5mm leather waiting for me to make the leap to mess around - but I was thinking of all the leather around me in a regular day - car seats, old jackets, baseball gloves - and had me thinking if people use leather from already made products? Or is that something to stay away from

I bought a shoulder of leather 3-4 lb from Tandy Leather to cover the jaws on a woodworking vise, now I’d like to make something more interesting. I purchased a $25 leather working tool kit from Amazon. Would a shop apron be too big of a first project? I’d need to buy more leather and was wondering if Tandy is the best place for a beginner?

This is the latest wallet I’ve crafted. While the shape isn't new, the standout features are the yellow stitching on both the exterior and interior, along with a custom white leather accent strip. It’s truly rewarding to create one-of-a-kind pieces like this.

I bought the chest armor pattern on Etsy, and I have all the holes punched and ready to stitch. I just don’t know how I go about doing it. It’s really just the middle part I’m confused on. It’s 3 separate pieces. Pls help…

I am busy crafting a belt with snakeskin, I've kind of been winging it a bit as this is the first time I'm working with snakeskin (or any very thin leather). I glued it onto a piece of veg tan cowhide and I still have a long way to go before I have a polished piece. I already took off the outer layer of the scales so they don't peel so easily and I've made a lifted border from a second beltstrap (not stitched on yet) so they don't have as much friction during use. Unfortunately the very tips still lift so they will eventually take damage through wear, I'm hoping someone on this sub can help me with an idea to maybe paint a diluted glue mixture or a varnish of some sort to keep the scales down. I'm just looking for something that won't change the colours or discolour/fade. If anyone has any ideas I would be very appreciative

hello, im looking to make a 'biker wallet'(2nd image) in black.

I came across this on amazon (india), a lot of people have bought the brown and most ppl seem to like it, there are barely any reviews about the black one.

But do you think this is good enough leather for my first diy that would last at least a good 2-3 years? https://amzn.in/d/09zkFFRj this is the link.

please be kind and let me know, thank you!

Finally finished making the Severed Head Bag. Patten/ design is by PaintyeeDesigns
Used a thinner sheepskin over veg-tan for the distressed wrinkled textures.
Stitching isn't the cleanest nor is the edge work which was left raw but this was more of horror art piece vs super precise bag making project for me. Used Angelus paints and dyes.

Laser engraving beats hand stamping for high-volume, precise details on small leather items like wallets and keychains. Monogramming initials for corporate and wedding gifts serves as the easiest, highest-demand entry point for most shops. While the learning curve requires testing power and speed settings across different leather weights to prevent burning, these settings are fully repeatable once dialed in. The biggest practical bottleneck leatherworkers face is the size constraint, as large leather hides often do not fit into standard laser bed dimensions.

Claude for the win to find that pattern I can visualize but the words don't make sense.