Leather Tassel Earrings Tutorial

I saw these leather tassel earrings featured as a giveaway over on A Beautiful Mess. They're made by Seattle artisan Daly Bird and I decided to recreate them with leather scraps I had left over from making this Anthropologie rip-off necklace.

Source: Olivine

I didn't have pieces of leather long enough to recreate the earrings exactly, but I still really like the way the earrings turned out. And they were very quick and easy to make.

Here's what you need:

- Leather scraps -- or better yet -- leather thread. You can purchase these at Michael's. My scraps are 4" long and are from the etsy shop silkfabric.

- Aleene's OK to Wash-It fabric glue

- Spool wire (I used 28 gauge)

- Earring hooks

- Needle

- Rotary cutter and self-healing mat or sharp fabric scissors

My leather scraps. This was way more than I needed. I probably only ended up using about one and a half of these. 

Cut your pieces of leather into thin strips. If you have leather thread, that would be even better! But I didn't so I created it. These don't have to be perfectly even.

Use about 10 inches of your metal thread and thread six of your leather strips onto it. I poked a hole through the leather with a needle first. 

Then wrap wire tightly around all six pieces of leather, securing them together. 

This photo is dark, but in this step you thread another strip of leather onto the wire and use the leather to wrap around all six pieces of leather. Then thread the wire through the leather again so that the leather meets together around the top of the tassel. 

You can see that better in this photo. Secure your leather with permanent fabric glue. 

After the glue dries, wrap the wire atop the tassel, creating a loop which you'll fasten your earring hooks to. Then wrap the remainder of wire tightly around the tassel, tucking the end piece beneath the loops of wire.

Attach your earring hooks and ta-da! You're done!