DIY Monogrammed Leather Gifts

I’m totally spoiling a little bit of the surprise of my Christmas gifts this year. I usually pop in after Christmas gifts have been open to share what I got everyone. (Which I’m totally doing again this year because I LOVE the gifts I bought.)

But I have to share the ones I’m most excited about. I do want to say… these are not perfect. I did the very best I could, haha, but still love the way they turned out. It’s such a simple and easy gift idea… and there’s still time to do it yourself before Christmas!

I took a class with Neely & Chloe and Inslee earlier this year and I made a mental note to do leather painting gifts for Christmas… and I followed through!

What You Need:

– Acrylic leather paint*

– Leather card cases **

– Paint Brushes

* I bought the set of leather paint, but it doesn’t include white (I learned the hard way). I purchased a white bottle separately!

I bought the leather cases during Black Friday for 50% off; they are a very, very supple leather. And have plenty of slots for cards and cash. I considered doing a few of each color but then decided to do all brown leather. Except for my friend Taylor, who is a pink girl through and through! I knew she’d appreciate a pink card case.

I started by sketching out sort of what I wanted to do with a pencil on a scrap of paper. It helped me figure out the spacing and what kind of lettering looked best with each name. Definitely don’t skip this step because it will help you plan what you need to “sketch” in white.

The next step is to paint everything with multiple, thin layers of white paint, letting each layer dry before moving on. (You can use a hair dryer to help “set” the paint faster.) Inslee taught us the white paint trick. It basically gives you a blank canvas so the colored paint shows up better on the leather. It also becomes a little outline you can follow for the rest of the painting.

After the white paint dries, then you go back over it with whatever color you want. I did it in many, many layers so everything could dry between colors. Because I had six cases to do, I’d do one layer, switch to another case, and repeat until I was back at case #1, which was dry by then, and then I started the layering process again.

 I tried to take everyone’s personality into account when figuring out what to do. And again, they’re not perfect, but I hope they’re loved and put to good use!