Leather Checkerboard Stocking Stuffer

This leather project is very fun to do and can be done by and level leathercrafter. For a reversable checker/chess board sew another piece of leather on and you will have a reversable side! I am not including pieces because I have not thought of any. I think I will be making leather pieces for an instructable someday! Enjoy. This is a low cost from the heart gift for any time of the year..

Find your leather, I love utilizing and paying for scraps because I pay 6$ for 3lbs of scraps at hobby lobby. Unfortunatly this is the biggest piece I had.

Get the leather wet, depending on how thick it is is how wet you should get it, I soaked mine in water because it was very thick.

Cut a square, mine ended up being 4 1/2 in x 4 1/2 in . Doing the math that is 81 squares total 

You wil now need a marble or hard surface to carve on, swivel knife, pencil and ruler. 

Its hard to see but on each side measure off every half inch. 

Connect the lines with the ruler horiziontally and vertically no reason to push hard you will be able to see it fine in real life

With the swivel knife trace the lines you drew. starting to look awesome.

Using your modeling  spoon or beveling , make the squares pop out  by pushing down on the lines.

Alternate painting red   on each square. Heres a tip...this is acrylic paint, its 9$ a bottle...for leather. Acrylic is acrylic you can use regular acrylic=) save your money 

Paint black and do touchups. It dries extremely fast. Now your ready to give your gift! Takes about 2 hours total.