Let's Cut Leather With the Cricut Explore!

10 Materials
$15
2 Hours
Easy

Using a simple Cricut ''life hack'' and some scraps of leather, you can create a set of adorable tassel earrings that are perfect for gift giving!

I will be honest, I LOVE my Cricut Explore Air Gold! It is one of those tools that I used all the time in my crafting and is just so versatile!


For example, have you ever tried to cut leather using your Cricut Explore? If so, then you are probably familiar with your Cricut mat ending up like this:

Personally, after cutting leather a few times and my Cricut mats being ''ruined'' each time, I was feeling a little sad. So, I mentioned this to one of my friends at Cricut and she said: "What about putting transfer tape on the back of the leather?" - WHAAAATTTTT??? YEEESSS!!!!!!!


Needless to say, a new obsession was born. So, for those of you who've avoided leather because you didn't want to ruin your mat, join me in the awesomeness of this little life hack that will change everything.


Now, let's make some earrings!

Here are the supplies you will need:

  • Cricut Explore® Air and Design Space software
  • Cricut Explore® Deep Cut Housing and Blade
  • Cricut® Strong Grip Mat
  • Cricut® Transfer Tape
  • a piece of leather - could also use pleather
  • liquid glue
  • two (2) gold eye pins
  • two (2) gold fish hook earrings
  • scissors or wire cutters
  • pliers

Step 1: Cut a piece of transfer tape that is slightly larger than your piece of leather. Remove the backing and apply the sticky side of the transfer tape to the back (the rough side) of the leather. Trim to fit.

Step 2: Place your piece of leather (with the transfer tape side down) onto a Cricut Strong Grip mat. Then put a deep cut blade into the Cricut, set the custom dial to leather and cut the earring image from Design Space.


Finally, peel the cut leather pieces from the mat and the transfer tape will remain.


Note- As I mentioned before, cutting leather using my Cricut would always leave a huge mess on my Cricut mat. However, since we used the transfer tape, once you remove both earring pieces and peel up the remaining leather, your mat will now be clean!

Step 3: Use scissors or wire cutters to cut off the portion of an eye pin so it will not stick out of the tassel when it is completed.

Step 4: Apply a small amount of liquid adhesive along the top (the area that is not cut) of the leather.

Step 5: Lay eye your pin on one end of the leather (with the loop overhanging the flat edge of the leather) and begin to gently roll the leather around the eye pin until it forms a tassel.

Step 6: Use pliers to attach the eye pin loop to a fish hook earring.

And voila! With just a few scraps of leather, you can create a set of cute tassel earrings that would be perfect for gift giving!


Besides making these leather tassel earrings, I also made some leather gold tipped triangle earrings. The gold tipped triangle earrings are even easier to make and take less time to create! So, if you want to see how I made those earrings, stop by my blog to get all the details!


To get more project inspiration for your home and to learn more about the products used in this project, stop by my blog!

Suggested materials:
  • Cricut Explore Air and Design Space software
  • Cricut Explore Deep Cut Housing and Blade
  • Cricut Strong Grip mat
See all materials
Beth Kingston
Want more details about this and other DIY projects? Check out my blog post!
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