DIY Faux Leather Earrings: Fall Leaves

Use faux leather or faux suede to make these earrings featuring the leaf icon.

Of all DIY faux leather earrings, the teardrop earrings are the quickest and easiest to make. And as cute as all the earrings are, these seem to be one of the most popular. In this post, I’ll share how to make these cute faux leather earrings.

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Check out my favorite diy earring essentials list on my Amazon storefront here!
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My Favorite Cricut Machine Options

Cricut Maker 4 Smart Cutting Machine

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Cricut Explore 4 - Smart Cutting Machine

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Cutting Tool and Accessory Essentials

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Silicone Earring Backs

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Earring Display Cards with Backs and Bags

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HOW TO MAKE DIY EARRINGS

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.

I used an SVG cut file that I bought on etsy at a shop called FolkTaleCo.

Pick your materials/colors.

I love to use faux leather and faux suede when I make this project. I chose the deep red, black, and tan colors from a Cricut faux suede pack for this post. The colors are perfect for Fall. This faux suede cuts so well on the Cricut machine because the setting is customized to this exact product.

Start a new project in Cricut Design Space.

Open Cricut Design Space and start a new project to make your diy faux leather earrings.

Insert the earring cut file image.

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

I always recommend adding tags when uploading new files. If you think you’ll make a lot of earrings, add tags like “earrings” and “leaf earring.” This makes it much easier when you’re looking for the file in the future.

Insert the cut file onto the canvas of your new project. Tip: to easily find my upload files, I usually filter by uploads.

Once the file has been uploaded into Cricut design studio, click on the Images icon on the left. Select the cut file you want to use. Then, click on the insert image button in lower, right-hand corner. See the cut file for this project below (see blue arrow).

This is what is looks like after being added to your project.

Delete unneeded items from the mat.

This file brings in two versions of the earring design when you insert it. One has a more rounded bottom (bottom row) while the other has a pointed bottom (top row). I have a lot of teardrop earrings so I chose to make the pointed leaf earrings.

Once you decide which earrings you’ll make, delete the ones you’re not making. To do this, you’ll first need to Ungroup the images in the file. Click on the file and once it is selected, click on the Ungroup button in the upper-right-hand corner.

Click on each item and once selected, click the X in the upper-left-hand corner to delete.

Re-size the earrings, if needed.

It is often necessary to re-size earrings when the file is added to the canvas. These earrings are a bit to big for me. The back earring pieces measures over 5″ tall. For this reason, I’m going re-size the earrings. Since the components of one of the earrings is already grouped together, I’m going to re-size that one. I like to re-size when components are grouped together so things change in size proportionally. For this reason, I’ll delete the other earring components on the mat, just leaving the one grouped earring.

I re-sized the earring to about 2.5″ tall.

Change earring components to the right color.

Changing the images to the right color keeps things clear when you’re putting different colors of leather and suede through the cutting machine. Sometimes, like in this project, the components are grouped together so you have to Ungroup them before you can change colors. (The Ungroup button is in the upper-right-hand corner.

Once Ungrouped, change the color of each earring component.

Duplicate images, as needed

You will need to duplicate the earring to make the second earring in the pair. To do this, click on the item to select it. Then, click on the Duplicate button in the upper-right-hand corner.

In addition, you need to make an extra of each of the backs if you plan to glue the back earring pieces back to back so that you can’t see the felt on the backside of the faux leather or faux suede. Duplicate two more of the back piece.

MAKE IT

Once your mat has all the earring components ready to cut, click on the Make It button.

On the left you’ll see the different mats that will need to be cut, one for each color of faux suede or leather in your project.

Mirror your design, if necessary

If your design isn’t symmetrical (same on both the left and right sides) you will probably want turn the mirror setting on if the good side of the faux suede is face down on the mat. That is an easy click on the mirror button for each mat you need to mirror. You don’t need to mirror this design.

Make sure you have the machine on the right material setting.

Turn your dial to custom.

Select the right material from the materials menu in Cricut Design studio.

When you’re using Cricut brand faux suede, this step is always easy because the settings are standardized and always work well for Cricut products. When using other brands of earring materials (like Hobby Lobby faux leather ribbon) it sometimes requires you to play around to get the setting right. This is sometimes frustrating. When I share my projects I’ll always share the settings that I learn work with the materials I am using for that project. Hopefully this will save time and wasted leather material for you.

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

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 print faux leather, faux suede, and leather on the Cricut Explore. When cutting Cricut’s faux suede, you can use the Cricut standard fine point blade. If you’re cutting genuine leather, you’ll need to use the Cricut deep blade.

Since this project uses faux suede, you won’t need to change your blade (if you’re currently using the normal fine point blade).

Place the material on the cutting mat.

Before you put the faux suede on the mat, you’ll want to look at the back of it to determine what is is made of. The back of this suede is felt. This means that it will leave a mess of fuzz when you take it off of your mat if you place it on the mat right side up. For this reason, I placed my faux suede on my mats good side down (when they have a felt back).

Also, I like to determine how much of the suede 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 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 suede or leather 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 leather/suede because I want minimize waste of the material.

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

After placing the faux suede on the mat, you can use a Cricut Brayer roller to press the faux suede onto your mat. I don’t have one of those so I use a dough roller.

Continue placing the leather onto each mat and cutting the faux leather with the Cricut machine.

Glue earring pieces together, if necessary.

As I mentioned earlier, the back of some faux leather and faux suede earrings aren’t very attractive because they are felt. I often cut an extra faux leather or suede piece for the back of the earring and I glue a second piece to the back of it. This way if the earring turns, the felt isn’t exposed. To do this, I glue two earrings together using E6000 glue. You can also use a glue gun if you’d prefer.

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

Using a pair of sharp scissors, trim fuzz from around the earrings.

Place a hole in the top of the earring.

I normally use a leather punch to put the holes in my earrings when the cut file doesn’t already have a hole. The tool linked above cuts through multiple layers of the earring at the same time. You can also use Cricut weeder tool to put a hole through faux leather and faux suede, but it is best to go through just one layer at a time if you do this.

Gather necessary earring components and tools to finish your diy faux leather earrings.

It doesn’t take much to put together earrings. You either need a couple of pairs of pliers or a jump ring tool and one pair of pliers. You can get the two tools below along with a full kit of earring hooks and jump rings on Amazon. It is the perfect starter set. Great for you if you’re getting started and a great gift for anyone that likes to DIY.

Beginner Jewelry Making Supplies

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Open the jump ring.

A jump ring isn’t closed. This means with the right tools, you can open it to put on the earring components.

These are the two tools that I use to open and close my jump rings.

I hold one side of the jump ring with my pliers. With my other hand, I use my jump ring tool to push one side of the jump ring back (to open). It is important not to open the jump ring by pulling them to the left and right. If you do it that way, it will be hard to close the jump ring, while keeping the shape. Instead, push the ring back/front to open the jump ring.

Note: If you’re using the jump ring tool, find the slot on the tool that is sized right for the jump ring.

Put the pieces of faux suede onto the jump ring.

Then attach a jump ring to the earring hook. I like to do this because it helps my earrings to face the front versus twisting/sideways facing earrings.

Attach the jump ring that you attached the earring hook to the jump ring that your earring components are on, making sure your hook faces the right direction before closing the jump ring.

Using the pliers and jump ring tool, close the jump ring.

And that’s it! Your diy faux leather earrings are done! I made a lot of these with different color combinations.

These diy faux leather earrings are fun to customize with various color! They make great earrings to show spirit for your school or favorite sports team.

Check out my other DIY faux leather earrings projects:

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

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