Leather Playing Card Pouch

A few weeks ago I bought a deck of cards and decided to build a leather pouch for it. Luckily most playing card cases are about the same size, so this pouch will work for several different card cases. I'm new to working with leather and this was my first leather project, so i'd appreciate any tips or ideas on how to make this project better.

Materials

• Sheet of leather of your choice (cut to 12in. x 15in)
• (1) 8mm button stud Screwback

http://www.tandyleather.com/en-usd/search/searchresults/11310-17.aspx

• The .EPS file attached at the bottom of this step. (File used for laser cutting or leather tracing)

Tools

• Sewing needle
• Black string/twine
• Leather Adhesive
• Access to a laser cutter. (If you dont want to use a laser cutter you can print out the .EPS file, and use it to trace over the leather. Then just cut it out by hand.)

Once you have cut out the leather pieces you can use a leather adhesive to begin attaching the first few leather panels to the case. After I had all of the panels laser cut, I decided to go back and burn a design onto some of the panels with an embossing tip attachment for a soldering iron.

Since the sewing holes do not extend all the way to the top of the case, the sides pull away from the case a little bit. In order to fix this problem, I cut out two pieces of scrap tin metal to match the sides that pull away. Then they were glued to the sides of the case. This worked out well because the metal pieces were bent inward slightly to keep the side panels from pulling away from the case. Also, to help match the color of the case the metal pieces were spray painted brown.

Using the sewing needle and black twine, thread the holes of the case as seen in the pictures above. Then attach the leather panels to cover the holes.

Once you have finished sewing the case together, you can attach the bottom leather panels as seen in the images above.

Finally insert the screw through the hole in the front of the case. Next screw on the stud. The reason I decided to use a screw-on stud is that in the event it becomes damaged it can easily be replaced.