DIY Faux Leather Earrings: Simple Teardrops

Use faux leather or faux suede to make these great do-it-yourself earrings.

I love layered diy faux leather earrings! They’re super easy to make and it’s fun to pick out two coordinating designs of faux leather or faux suede. In this post, I’ll share several picture of teardrop earring projects, along with the links to my materials. Then, I’ll share how to make these cute faux leather earrings.

My website contains affiliate marketing links, which means that when you make a purchase after clicking my links, I may receive a small commission for any sales made from links you click on. This doesn’t change the price you price for the items.

My Favorite DIY Earrings Supplies

Cricut Machine – I recommend the Cricut Explore Air 2 or the Cricut Maker.
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.
Cricut Cutting Mats – You need new or very sticky cutting mats.
- Bulk contact paper
- 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)
Small 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 Aleene’s fabric glue
Heat and Bond
Strong Grip Cricut Transfer Tape
Standard Grip Cricut Transfer Tape
Earring Backs
Plastic bags for earrings
Earring Cards

Faux Leather Project Photos

Faux Suede Black & Burgundy Earrings

Materials: Faux suede from Cricut – cut on Cricut Faux Suede setting (default pressure)

Black and White Stripe Teardrop Earrings

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 2″ long and 1.3″ wide.
Material 2 (front): White with black stripes faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 1.8″ long and 1″ wide.

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 2″ long and 1.6″ wide.
Material 2 (front): White with black stripes faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 1.7″ long and 1.4″ wide.

Pink Floral Embossed Teardrop Earrings

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 2″ long and 1.3″ wide.
Material 2 (front): Pink embossed floral faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 1.8″ long and 1″ wide.

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 2″ long and 1.6″ wide.
Material 2 (front): Pink embossed floral faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 1.7″ long and 1.4″ wide.

Black and White Buffalo Check Earrings

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure).
Material 2 (front): Mini black and white buffalo check. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure).

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure).
Material 2 (front): Mini black and white buffalo check. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure).

Cheetah Teardrop Earrings

Material 1 (back): Double-sided brown faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 2″ long and 1.3″ wide.
Material 2 (front): Cheetah faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 1.8″ long and 1″ wide.

Material 1 (back): Double-sided brown faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 2″ long and 1.6″ wide.
Material 2 (front): Cheetah faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure). Measures 1.7″ long and 1.4″ wide.

Red and Black Buffalo Check Teardrop Earrings

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure).
Material 2 (front): Mini red and black buffalo check faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure).

Material 1 (back): Double-sided black faux leather. Cut with deep cut blade on Genuine Leather setting (default pressure).
Material 2 (front): Mini red and black buffalo check faux leather. Cut with fine cut blade on Shimmered Leather setting (default pressure).

HOW TO MAKE 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 this SVG file for the teardrop earrings in this post. You’ll notice the file has both the wider stacked earrings and a more narrow teardrop earrings that I made and shared in this blog post.

Pick your materials/colors.

My favorite part of every earring project is picking out the materials. You can make teardrop earrings with faux leather, faux suede, cork, and genuine leather. There are great materials on Amazon and Etsy. I linked the materials used for each project underneath the project photos above. There are so many leather shops on Etsy that it can be overwhelming. My favorite leather shops are linked below.

Start a new project in Cricut Design Space.

Open Cricut Design Space and start a new project.

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 “teardrop.” This will make 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.

Re-size the earrings, if needed.

After adding the earring image to the canvas in Cricut Design Space, it is often necessary to re-size the earrings. Insert your desired dimensions into the W (width) and H (height) field.

You can set the earring dimensions to match your preference. Smaller teardrops start at around 1.25 inches long. Larger earrings are around 2.5 inches long. I typically find teardrop earrings to be somewhere within that range.

Change earring components to the right color.

Changing the earrings on the canvas to a color matching the material will help keep things clear when your putting different colors of leather and suede through the cutting machine. Sometimes 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. 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. To do this, you can make a duplicate of each of the earring components to make a pair.

To do that, click on one of the earring components and then click the duplicate button. Repeat for each earring component.

Then, I duplicate 2 more of the larger size earring component (the red ones) so that I can glue them back to back.

MAKE IT

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

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

Select the material setting.

If you’re using a Cricut Explorer Air, turn your dial to custom.

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

Move the star wheels.

The Cricut machine has star wheels to keep materials from shifting during cutting when making diy faux leather earrings. 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, cork, and genuine leather on the Cricut Explore Air and Cricut Maker. When cutting Cricut’s faux suede, cork sheets, and faux leather, you can use the Cricut standard fine point blade. If you’re cutting genuine leather, you’ll need to use the Cricut deep blade.

Place the material on the cutting mat.

The approach you use to place the material on your mat plays a big role in your material cutting success.

How to get the material to stick to mat?

Using an extremely sticky mat is one of the most important keys to get a good cut in the material. Some people attach the material to the mat with painter’s tape. I’m not a big fan of this because while it keeps the leather down on the edges, this approach doesn’t help the hold on other parts of the leather. For this reason, you won’t see me use tape very often.

That said, I always use tape any time I am cutting chunky glitter faux leather. I do this because the chunky glitter faux leather will not stick to the mat, regardless of how sticky the mat is.

Regardless of the material type, I always start by putting transfer tape on my mat. This approach keeps my mat clean and it also holds the material down really well (with the exception of glitter sheets) because it’s super sticky .

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 as 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 Crafter’s Pick Fabric glue or Aleene’s fabric glue.

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.

I used templates that had holes precut. When using templates you sometimes need to snip a small part of the hold that doesn’t cut all the way through. To remove earring holes from an image on your mat, click on the Contour button in the lower-right hand corner. Then, click on the circle which represents the hole; this will hide the hole from the cut.

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. Get the two tools below along with a full kit of earring hooks and jump rings AND sheets of faux leather in this inexpensive DIY earring kit 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

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. They’re both in this awesome starter kit.

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 below.

Everyday Earrings DIY

Sports Earrings DIY

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