Leather Bark Keychain

Are you looking for a gift for your loved one or a new dudad for your keys?

In this tutorial I will be showing you how to make a faux bark leather keychain. Inscribed with yours and your lovers initials, this is sure to be a gift that lasts forever.

Let's begin.

The materials you will be needing are:

a small piece of leather

acrylic resolene

O Ring

1 rivet

paint brush

anvil and setter

mallet

some type of hole puncher

pattern (you can trace or print the one that I made, or make your own)

swivel knife

scissors,exacto knife, or box cutter

leather dye(brown)

dye applicator (aka. old rag)

paper plate(a place to put your dye)

pen

Take your pattern and lay it over your your piece of leather. Trace over the lines of your pattern, pressing down hard onto the leather with your pen.

When you take the piece of paper off of the leather you will see the indentation in the leather.

Then trace the indentations in the leather with your pen.

Use your swivel knife to trace the lines. Make sure to make the heart lines deeper than the bark lines.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Only trace the lines inside the heart that are the letters. Do not trace the bark line inside heart. I did many tests to figure out what gets the best results and tracing the bark lines inside of the heart made it look very muddled and hard to read.

Put a little bit of brown leather dye down on your paper plate. Add some water to dilute it.

Putting down lighter coats of dye will make it so you don't go too dark too fast.

Dye the edges and back of the leather first to any darkness level you like.

Front:

I started by putting down one light coat over the whole piece. I then used the paint brush to fill in the bark indentations.

After that I went in with a paint brush and shaded some of the bark areas darker.

From there you can really just darken more or less until you find you are happy with it. Just make sure that there is enough contrast in the piece. When you put the finish on the leather, it will look flat and your paint job will go to waste if there is not enough contrast.

Next just apply acrylic resolene over the whole thing.

Then all you have left to do is punch the hole where the rivet will go.

After you do that, wrap the leather around the O ring and apply your rivet.

And there you have it.

You now have an adorable little symbol of your love. If its for yourself or for someone else, enjoy your awesome new keychain. :D

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Comments are much appreciated.