Simple leather (or pleather) crafts

Yesterday at uni we had a whole day of learning different finishes and crafts with leather. We learned some pretty cool effects and tricks are were easy and really fun to do. So I immediately hit pinterest to find a way of sharing these techniques with you guys. Of course you can use pleather or some other kind of material to make these too.

1. Magic braiding

This was one of my favorite techniques I learned yesterday but I wouldn't even begin to know how to explain it to you. Melissa Esplin describes it perfectly in her Magic Braided Leather tutorial. Don't forget to check out Melissa's other posts too, she has a flair for craft and design and updates her blog with great tutorials regularly.

2. The Five Stranded Braid

I didn't learn this technique yesterday, but it's on my list of things to try. I love this effect because it looks strong and decorative at the same time. Design and Form shares a brilliant step by step tutorial on how to achieve this beautiful effect.

3. Leather Wrapped Bracelet

This Leather Wrapped Bracelet tutorial by Lebenslustiger looks a little harder than the others but totally worth it. For anyone wanting Faux leather cord for this, Nature Beads on Etsy has a nice selection.

4. DIY Leather tassels

FACT: Tassels are awesome. They're super simple to do and very effective. You can use them to spruce up presents, stick to shoes and bags, make keyrings and jewellery with. Miss Renaissance.com/ proves just how awesome they can look with her DIY Leather Tassels. Her use of colour and detail makes these tassels look extra special and makes great inspiration for creating your own.

The Death of a Shoe

On my first day of uni we were all taken into a room full of shoes and asked to pick one to take apart. To my flatmate Ari's horror, I chose a sneaker made by the brand GUESS (she's a Guess addict and almost cried when she saw the corpse of what once was a Guess shoe).

Taking the shoe apart was very eye opening, I discovered so many hidden parts that keep the shoe together, stable and comfortable.

Here's some pictures I took for my tech file. If you're squeamish about dismembered shoes then look away now.

You can see more of my uni work here.