Kombucha Leather Wallet

I just got interested in sustainable products. I had real fun in the process of making my own wallet that might be usable?

I had gotten interested in cruelty-free and vegan culture as animal abuse became a major issue in the world. Many animals, industry-related animals, in particular, suffer a lot due to bad living conditions. People do not want to spend lots of money on them when they get sick or spend a lot to fix something regarding their lives because the people need to make a profit out of them. Also, some greedy people give pills out to the geese to make a big foie gras to make lots of money. Male chicks are not useful for us and often get shredded. How can people be cruel like this? This is not it; lots of leather products are made of animals, and we think it is luxurious, but it is very cruel and unsustainable. We need to change this.

For those who don't know what kombucha is, kombucha is a fermented tea. It's kinda sparkly and has a little kick like vinegar. I personally don't like it, but my friends love to drink it bc it's healthy. I feel like I have to explain how you make kombucha. It is pretty simple but not simple. You put a bunch of sugar in green or black tea with the ready-to-go kombucha from the grocery market together and leave it for a while to get the SCOBY, an acronym for Symbiotic Culture Of Bacteria and Yeast. (wow, I have no idea what that means - yuh, me neither) Anyways, if you leave it for a month, you'll get the fibre layer from it, and THAT is what I am going to use for the wallet, and if you mix the liquid with the water, then that's what you drink, the kombucha tea. But, you probably don't want to drink the kombucha from the batch that is about two months old because the taste will be bad if it has been left for too long.

Kombucha is good for your body; it helps with weight loss or just a diet in general because it cleanses your body. Since it is a fermented food, it'll boost digestion by containing probiotics. It strengthens the immune system.

Try making a kombucha leather wallet if you have a kombucha SCOBY that is too old or you have a load of them and don't know what to do. You can make anything with this. Trust me, it smells bad, but it goes away after a few days (or weeks if you don't dry them properly). The main advantage of using kombucha leather is that you don't harm any animals because this SCOBY can replace the jobs of animal leather. It is good for the environment!

Main Ingredients for growing SCOBY

• 1 gallon of water (3.785 litres)
• 4 tea bags of green/black tea (or 8, need to be checked)
• 2 cups of sugar (more sugar, the better bc sugar is basically the food for the enzymes/ bacteria = amount of sugar may differ the size of the SCOBY)
• a piece of SCOBY (i got one from my teacher, make one if you don't have one. You can put a bottle of market-purchased kombucha instead of the SCOBY to grow it from the scratch. It just takes more time for ya lol)

Tool for harvesting SCOBY

• Container with a large surface for large SCOBY
• rubber band (for covering the container)
• A large piece of cloth/ fabric (for covering the container; filtering cloth is recommended)
• A pot to brew tea
• A cup
• Alcohol spray for extra hygiene
• Stove/Burner
• Not a tool exactly but a room with windows (it stinks)

Tool for SCOBY Leather

• Drying rack ( I personally used a customised wooden frame✨ getting help from other talented people could be helpful & the size of the rack can be different depending on what size is your SCOBY is )
• Clips for holding SCOBY to dry evenly in the air
• few spoons of coconut oil or any plant-based oil
• 20 grams of Beeswax

Tool for Wallet

• Needle
• Burlap string (extra eco-friendly ;))
• Scissors
• Ruler
• Cutting pad if you don't want to get slapped by your mom because you cut the dinner table (like me)
• Scrap paper if you want to make a prototype
• Pen
• Superglue if you are lazy to sew

The materials here are from the supplies: "main ingredients for growing SCOBY" and "tools for harvesting SCOBY"

This recipe may not be appropriate for those who want to harvest it from the scratch but since I got a piece of SCOBY already, I don't need to waste my time.

Keep in mind: SCOBY is very sensitive- you need to be extra careful when you touch SCOBY or the oxygen touches the SCOBY because it is easy to be infected by other factors. ALWAYS WASH YOUR HANDS BEFORE DOING ANY OF THIS PROCESS

+ It is nice if you place all the materials on the table like this, it makes ur life much easier bc you do not need to wander around to look for a thing you missed.

In a pot: pour one gallon of water and two cups of sugar first, and then wait till the sugar melts and add 4 whatever teabags you got.

I waited for 30 minutes for the tea to brew but it does not have to be this long. I just simply missed the timing because I was at the dorm meeting. Just wait til you get the yellow/orange colour that you get when you drink tea.

And cool it down before you put the tea in the container so that your SCOBY doesn't get burned.

This is the last step before you wait three weeks.

Put your cooled-down tea and the SCOBY piece in the big container.

(I used this strainer to take out all the tea leaves but it's not necessary)

Cover it with a cheesecloth or any fabric you have so that it prevents unnecessary airflow and tie it with the rubber band.

Place it away from your bedroom. It might stink as time passes with a high possibility. + NO SUN AROUND THE CONTAINER

Also, I know you are very wondering what is happening in the container, but try not to move it because it may affect the shape of the SCOBY later. For me, I kept checking on my SCOBY, I moved thousands of times and I even opened the fabric to touch it- this is no good.

Then you are good to wait for three weeks until the SCOBY grows with your container shape. I am attaching some of the processes of SCOBY growing (if you get like little film-like layer after three days, you are on the right track)

I upload some of the progress here.

If you patiently have waited for three weeks or more, it's time to dry the sheet of SCOBY.

I suggest you make a wooden frame if you can; I asked my school design technician for the customised wooden frame because it is way easier to dry it safely. Make it like the photo above or here is the video that I used as a reference.

Since the place where I live is damn cold so it was not possible to dry outside and I don't wanna freeze my three weeks + effort. So I just put it where no one would touch and I let it dry for 5 days.

Do not let it dry for too long. Especially those of you who are dealing with the thickness of 5mm or less because it will become crispy and it's really easy to break.

This is optional*

I suggest not to use any coating if you are like me never have experienced using beeswax.

Some people tell you to use coconut oil but I don't really think it works very well and it just makes your leather nasty because the oil stains your hand even though you remove all the access.

Back to the beeswax, I think it is good for water resistance but it's super hard to put it on the leather. I wanted to minimise the heat used in this process because you don't know if any heat would ruin the leather so I melted the wax separately and tried to put it on with a brush but the wax hardened really quick even before I put it on the leather. It is really hard to put the wax evenly on the sheet of leather.

So, it's up to you whether coating or not.

You may develop a new design or find a good one based on the size of leather you have.

If you have a small sheet of leather, you may want to make a cardholder or coin pouch.

I made my own cardholder/coin pouch design referred to the Pinterest page (here is mine; not many pins but still useful for mini wallets) and did Analysis to collect features I liked or seemed functional.

It is also good to make a prototype with paper before you actually make it with the leather.

If you think you are ready to make the wallet with your prepared design, you are good to cut the leather and sew!

One thing to notice: You don't want to use any pens on the leather to stain it so I recommend making each piece of the wallet with paper so that you can cut leather along with the edge of the paper piece.

This is the last step!

With your leather pieces, sew with the needle and string.

Use a strong string, it makes life much easier. Otherwise, you can use make your string thicker by putting two strings in the needle at the same time ( I did this and ig it's aesthetically pleasing as well)

Also, make the holes in even distance first with the needle so you are less likely to rip the leather while sewing and keep the wallet nice and neat.

Finally, finish the wallet by putting any accessory like buttons or whatever it makes the thing like a wallet then you are finished! YAY! WELL DONE.