Cut genuine leather on a Cricut

It’s easy to make DIY earrings with genuine leather by cutting the leather on your Cricut.

In this post (and YouTube video below), I’ll share how easy it to to cut genuine leather with a Cricut. There are so many great earring designs that are easy to cut on genuine leather, making diy earrings easy.

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Check out my favorite diy earring essentials list on my Amazon storefront here!
Check out my favorite diy earring materials list on my Amazon storefront here!

ADDITIONAL PROJECT PHOTOS

Before sharing the instructions, I’ll share several project photos and links to where I found the genuine leather.

Shamrock Genuine Leather

Cut geuniune leather with a Cricut to make these diy leather earrings

Genuine Leather, Poinsettia – Part of s a scrap kit

Genuine Leather, Reindeer – part of a holiday leather scrap kit

Genuine Leather, Halloween Print

Genuine Leather, Bright Floral – part of a scrap kit

Genuine Leather back With Cork Front, Cheetah

Genuine Leather back with Cork Front, Black and White Design – This sold out, but here is another black and white design and there are LOTs of great cork with leather back options in this shop.

Details for cutting genuine leather with a Cricut can be seen in my YouTube video below.

What You’ll Need to cut genuine leather with a Cricut:

Cricut Machine – I recommend the Cricut Explore Air 2 or the Cricut Maker.
Genuine Leather
- Black genuine leather
- Leather Bundle – red, silver, black, gold
Earring supplies – earring hooks, jump rings, pliers, jump ring tool. This is the kit that I bought on Amazon and love it! It has a bundle of faux leather sheets as well as all of the tools you’ll need to make earrings.
Earring supplies – earring hooks, jump rings, pliers, jump ring tool. This is the kit that I bought on Amazon and love it! It has a bundle of faux leather sheets as well as all of the tools you’ll need to make earrings.
Earring wire hooks with balls – I used this style of hook for these earrings. They’re super easy to use and won’t require jump rings or jump ring tools/pliers.
Cricut Cutting Mats – You need new or very sticky cutting mats.
- Standard Green Mats -for faux leather, cork, and HTV.
- Stronggrip Purple mats – for genuine leather
Basic Cricut Tools
Cricut Brayer
Huge Cricut tools Bundle
Leather hole punch (Larger holes, smallest is 2)
Leather hole punch – This leather punch makes much smaller holes than the one above.
Leather Scissors
Here is what I use to smooth my leather edges.
Crafter’s Pick Fabric glue or E6000 glue
Heat and Bond
Earring Backs
Earring Cards
Plastic bags

HOW TO CUT GENUINE LEATHER WITH A CRICUT

Select an earring template and upload it into Cricut Design Space.

You can find many templates for your earrings on Pinterest and Etsy. Many bloggers offer them for free and others are available for sale on the Etsy website.

For these genuine leather earrings, I used a file from SVG Cuttables, linked below.

SVG Cuttables – Assorted SVG Earrings file

Open Cricut Design Space and start a new project

Start a new project to make your genuine leather earrings by clicking on the + icon.

Start a new project in Cricut Design Space

How to make faux leather earrings on a Cricut machine

Upload Image, if not already uploaded

Upload the cut file for this project, by clicking on the upload icon on the left and navigate to the file on your computer.

I always recommend adding tags when uploading new files. Pick words that you would type in if you were looking for the file. This makes it much easier to search for the file when you’re looking for it in the future.

Insert the cut file onto the canvas of your new project.

Click on the Images icon on the left.

Tip: To easily find my upload files, I usually filter by files that I have uploaded. Click on the Filter option.

Click on “Uploaded.”

Select the cut file you want to use. It will have a green box around it when selected. Then, click on the Insert Image button in lower, right-hand corner.

Once you’ve inserted the image onto the canvas, you can see the dimensions of the file you’ve inserted in the height and width field.

Re-size the diy faux leather earrings, if needed.

It is often necessary to re-size earrings when the file is added to the canvas. An earring size is a personal preference, but here are some general dimensions.

Small teardrops – 1 3/4 inches
Large teardrops – 2 1/2 inches
Medium leaf – 2 1/4 inches
Large leaf – 2 1/2 inches

You’ll want to decide the height of your earring based on personal preference.

Duplicate images, as needed

Now it’s time to duplicate your images. Click a teardrop and then click Duplicate in the upper right-hand corner to make your second earring.

MAKE IT

Once your mat has all the earring components ready to cut for your earring components, click on the Make It button to cut your genuine leather earrings

Set the Cricut machine on the right setting.

Turn your dial on your Cricut Explore to Custom. This lets you look at the long list of materials.

Click on the Browse All Materials link to see the menu of materials options on your Cricut.

Selecting a material from the Browse all materials menu on Cricut Design Space for your Cricut machine

Select the Genuine Leather option. If you’re using Metallic Leather, be sure to select that option.

Move the star wheels.

The Cricut machine has star wheels to keep materials from shifting during cutting. However, when cutting thicker materials, the star wheels can leave track marks. When you select a material from the browse menu that is thicker, the Cricut machine will prompt you to move the star wheels to the right.

Push the wheels to the right. They may be on there tight so put some strength behind it.

Make sure you’re using the right blade.

You can cut faux leather, faux suede, cork, and leather on the Cricut Explore and Cricut Maker. When cutting Cricut’s faux leather and faux suede, you can use the Cricut standard fine point blade.

However, in this project, I’m cutting genuine leather so I need to change my blade to the Cricut deep blade. Watch my video above to see how easy it is.

Place your material on the cutting mat(s).

Put the leather onto the mat face down.

Exception: If you are using leather that is printed on the front (like in the projects shown above, it is best to put them onto the mat with the design facing up. Otherwise, the print may pull off. Be sure to put strong grip transfer paper onto your mat (sticky side up so that your leather sticks to it) to keep it from getting destroyed by all of the leather fibers.

You must use a purple StrongGrip mat (linked above).

Also, I like to determine how much of the material will be cut. Typically, it is less than 3″ of material, meaning only about 3″ of the mat needs to be exposed. I then place my plastic Cricut mat cover back onto my mat about 3″ down from the top of the cutting area. I do this so that I don’t put the material on top of the mat where I’m not cutting it. This keeps me from losing the stickiness on my mat. I don’t like to pre-cut my material because I want minimize waste of the material.

Once I place my plastic on top of the mat, I put the material onto the mat, face down (good side down).

After placing the material on the mat, you can use a Cricut Brayer roller to press it nicely onto your mat. Now it’s time to cut genuine leather with a Cricut.

using a Cricut brayer to roll genuine leather onto the Cricut mat

Trim any felt, fuzz, or glue from the earrings.

Using a pair of sharp scissors, trim fuzz from around the earrings. Be very careful not to cut any of the earring, you’re only cutting the flyaways off of the earring.

When I cut genuine leather I use this to smooth the leather around the edges. It works so great to manage the flyaways. I just use a toothpick to put it on (see the video for details).

Place a hole in the top of the earring.

I use a leather punch to put the holes in my diy faux leather earrings. The tool linked above cuts through multiple layers of the earring at the same time.

Below you’ll see a picture of me using the leather hole punch on a different project.

Easy Earring Hooks

I use these wires with balls on the end a lot when I make leather earrings. The leather is thick and won’t come off of the balls easily. There are a lot options in colors of these wires.

And that’s it! It’s easy to cut genuine leather with a Cricut! Good luck with your project.

If you enjoy making diy faux leather earrings, check out my other posts below.

Everyday Earrings DIY

Sports

Football Earrings – Teardrop with football cut out
Stacked Football earrings
Chiefs Football Teardrop Earrings
Chiefs Heart Teardrop Earrings
Chiefs Arrowhead Earrings
Chiefs Arrowhead on Teardrop Earrings

My Favorite Leather

My Favorite Faux Leather

Valentine’s Day Earrings

St. Patrick’s Day Earrings

Winter-Themed Earrings DIY

Christmas -Themed Earrings DIY