Leather Earrings with Chains

Adding chains to diy leather earrings gives fun flair!

It’s actually pretty easy to make leather earrings with chains when you have the right supplies. I use a Cricut machine to cut my earrings. A Cricut machine cuts faux leather, cork sheets, and genuine leather. I used jump rings to connect the diy earrings with pieces of jewelry chains. In this post, I’ll share highlights about how I completed this project. For full details, see my YouTube video below.

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

Details for making leather earrings with chains can be seen in my YouTube video below.

Example Projects of Leather Earrings With Chains

Black Leather with Silver speckled dots
Silver Chain
No time to DIY? Buy them here!

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Turquoise And Black Streak
Silver Chain
No time to DIY? Buy them here!

Want to buy these now? Click here to see them in my etsy shop?

Black with Silver Streak Cork
Silver Chain

Want to buy these now? Click here to see them in my etsy shop.

Brown Leather with brown suede
Gold Chain

Want to skip the DIY and buy these now, click here to see them in my etsy shop.

Grey and White Pattern Faux Leather
Silver Chain

Want to skip the DIY and buy these now? Click here to buy these in my etsy shop.

Metallic Brown Leather
Gold Chain

Want to skip the DIY and buy them now? Click here to check them out here in my etsy shop.

Golden Pier Cork
Gold Chain

Want to skip the DIY and buy these earrings now? Click here to check them out in my etsy shop.

Want to skip the DIY and buy them now? Click here to check them out in my etsy shop.

What You’ll Need to make these Leather Earrings with Chains

Cricut Machine – I recommend the Cricut Explore Air 2 or the Cricut Maker.
Chains
- Silver chain (comes with jump rings)
- Gold chain (comes with jump rings)
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.
Heat and Bond
Earring wire hooks with balls – This is one style of earring hook that you can use. They’re super easy to use and won’t require jump rings or jump ring tools/pliers.
- Gold Plated
- 14K Gold
- .925 Sterling Silver
- 300 piece set silver
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
Cricut Easy Press – There are a few options. All work, but I usually use a 9″ x 9″.
- 9″ x 9″ Cricut Easy Press
- Cricut Easy Press Mini
- 9″ x 9″ Cricut Easy Press Bundle, includes mat
Cricut Easy Press Mat
- 8″ x 10″ Easy Press Mat
- 12″ x 12″ Easy Press Mat
- 16″ x 20″ Easy Press Mat
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
Cricut Transfer Tape, Strong Grip
Cricut Transfer Tape, Standard Grip
Earring Backs
Earring Cards – I use these because they are tall enough that my earrings can fully hang while in the jewelry bags. If your earrings hang longer than your cards, they will not look as good when you put them into the plastic bags.
Plastic bags for earrings
Embossing Machine
Weave Embossing Folder
Diamond Embossing Folder
Scroll Embossing Folder
Damask Embossing Folder

Selecting an SVG File

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

This is a great fringe earring bundle, which includes many variations of earring shapes and fringe.

Selecting a Material on Cricut

Click on the Browse All Materials link to see the menu of materials options on your Cricut. Options vary between the Cricut Explore Air/Air 2 and the Cricut Maker.

The good news is that you can cut genuine leather, faux leather, and cork sheets with a Cricut machine. It’s just important that set the material correctly and use the right blade to cut your material

You will be prompted to select a material after you select Make it. When I use my Cricut Explore Air, I need to make sure my knob is set to Custom.

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

For your faux leather, if it is Cricut faux leather, you’ll select the Cricut faux leather option from the Browse materials menu.

If I’m using non-Cricut faux leather (which is almost always), the Shimmer Leather option (shown below) normally works best for me.

Most of the time when cutting genuine leather, I select the Genuine leather option.

If you’re using using the Cricut brand – metallic leather, select the Metallic Leather option. It’s a bit thicker so you’ll want to use this Metallic leather setting to ensure that the cut goes all the way through. I also choose this option if my leather is a tad bit thicker.

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. You won’t be prompted to do this step for faux leather. I pretty much keep my star wheels to the right all the time (for leather, faux leather, and cork).

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 cork sheets, faux leather and 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.

Place your material on the cutting mat(s).

Before I put the material onto the mat, I like to put something on it to protect it from getting all the fibers on it. I normally use Cricut standard grip transfer tape, Cricut strong grip transfer tape, or Dollar Tree contact paper.

This also helps ensure my material is nicely attached to the mat when I’m not using a brand new mat that may not be as sticky.

I put the transfer tape down onto the mat, sticky side up.

Remove the backing of the transfer tape or contact paper.

pulling backing off of the transfer tape

Then I put my material onto the transfer tape or contact paper, with the good side facing down onto the transfer tape or contact paper.

After placing the material on the mat, you can use a Cricut Brayer roller to press it nicely onto your mat.

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

Use the Cricut Easy Press to Apply Heat n Bond

When using faux leather, I often glue earrings back to back. My favorite way to use that is by using a product called Heat n Bond. There are a lot of kinds of it, and this is the one I use on faux leather earrings.

I do this before I put my material onto my mat (before I cut the earrings).

I cut a piece of Heat n Bond the same size as my faux leather.

applying Heat n Bond to the back of Hobby Lobby faux leather

Then I place the Heat n Bond on the back side of the faux leather. The textured side of the Heat n Bond should be facing/touching the back of the faux leather.

Heat n Bond for diy faux leather earrings

You can use an iron to apply the Heat n Bond; however I use my Cricut Easy Press. It’s super easy to use and it’s always on my craft desk.

Pre-heat the Cricut Easy Press

When you’re ready to use your Cricut Easy Press, turn it on and set the temperature.

I usually set my Easy Press to 300 degrees when applying my Heat N Bond and I leave it on my material for about 10 seconds.

I place parchment paper onto my Cricut Easy Press mat (to protect it from any adhesive). Then, I place my faux leather on top of it, with the good side facing down, with the Heat N Bond on top of that. I then place my Cricut Easy Press on top of that.

Here are some Cricut Easy Press mat options from Amazon.

Attach earrings, back to back

After cutting the earring pieces, remove the white backing of the Heat and Bond.

removing Heat N Bond backing from Hobby Lobby faux leather earrings

Put the earrings back to back, lining up the two pieces.

lining up the two earrings back to back, preparing to use Cricut Easy Press

The Cricut Easy Press shouldn’t be set directly onto the faux leather. Place parchment paper on the Easy Press mat. Then place the earrings on top of the parchment paper. Then, place another piece of parchment paper on top of the earring.

Set the Easy Press on the parchment paper for about 10 seconds.

Cricut Easy Press on Hobby Lobby faux leather earrings

Parchment paper on faux leather earring diy project

No Heat N Bond?

If you’d like to create faux leather earrings that have a great look on both sides, and you don’t want to use Heat N Bond, you can use fabric glue. My favorite glue to use is Crafter’s Pick Fabric glue.

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 fuzz off of your leather earrings.

You can also smooth the earring by using this burnishing agent. I apply it with a tooth pick along the edges. It’s great because it smooths the leather and helps better define the edges.

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. Here is an option for a smaller hole leather punch.

punching a hole in the faux leather earrings

Prepare Chains

Figure out which chain you will you.

There are so many colors and even styles of chain that you can use. The cost come that I use are below.

Decide which type of hooks you’ll use.

i am using basic fish hook earrings for this project.

If you haven’t worked with hooks and jump rings before you may want to look at a starter kits such as this inexpensive DIY earring kit on Amazon. It is the perfect starter set and a great gift for anyone that likes to DIY.

The jump ring tool and pliers below come in the kit linked above.

Put a jump ring on each of the hooks.

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

If you want to add jump rings, first decide which size of jump rings you want to use. A 4mm jump ring is good if you only have one item or a couple of thin items. A 6mm jump ring will hold a bit thicker material. Gather up a couple of jump rings in the size you need.

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 a hook onto a jump ring for each earring.

I use two jump rings for each earring so that the earring will face to the front. I like to start by putting my first jump ring onto each hook and then closing the jump ring. I do this before I even begin to put the earring components onto the second jump ring.

adding a hook to a jump ring for earrings

Put earrings and hooks onto second jump rings.

Then I open the second jump ring and put the earring onto the second jump ring.

jump ring with faux leather earring put on

Add the chain to the jump ring. I just put a link onto the jump ring at round the mid-point of the chain. I don’t like it to be too exact as I think it looks great when it is a little offset.