Beaded Leather Cuff

What you’ll need:

• Leather cuff
• Bead Cord (I used a 3-ply silk cord in black so that it wouldn’t show)
• Beads of your choice – mine are silver plated and stone
• Sharp utility knife and a ruler
• Sharp, thick needle (I just used the biggest one that came in a regular pack of sharps needles)
• Hammer
• Self-healing mat or several layers of cardboard for your cutting and hole-punching

By cutting an existing cuff (I found mine in a 2-pack for less than $3 at Hobby Lobby), you get the look of a wrapped bracelet out of one cuff really inexpensively.  But if you prefer a wrap, you can certainly go that route, too.  To trim your cuff, measure where you want to cut, and place your ruler as a guide so make sure your cuts are nice and straight.  You’ll want to do this on a self-healing mat or several layers of cardboard to protect your work surface.  And please be careful anytime you use sharp objects, of course. :)

Now, next I actually attempted to use a 2mm leather punch for my holes.  I scored them first and then realized – they would be way too big at 2mm.  So what I ended up doing was this – I used a large, sharp needle as a makeshift awl (you could obviously use a real awl if you have one) and I just hammered it in to make my holes.

You’ll see the circles where I was planning to punch my holes.  I spaced them 1/2 inch apart from each other for my bead distance, but do whatever you like here.  I just put a hole in the center of each of those, and a second hole slightly outside – so I punched two small holes for each circle you see.  You shold be able to see an extra hole just outside each circle below.

I made two holes each, because I wanted to tie a small knot on the underside of the cuff on either side of the bead.  I threaded it through (if your beading needle is having trouble passing through the hole you made, you may want to use pliers to help pull it through).

Then I tied it off, and threaded my cord back through to the top of the cuff.  Then, I added a couple of beads, and tied off the other side.  I did this for each set of holes I made.

Beading went pretty quickly, though I’m not going to say it was really easy.  Threading through leather was a little bit of a challenge – not difficult, it was just a tight fit so you’ll have to coax it through, is all.  This project only took me about 30 minutes, though, and I was left with a fabulous cuff at the end.

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~ Adrianne