Pinched Leather Earrings
Make these pinched leather leaf earrings by cutting leather on your Cricut machine.
These pinched leather earrings can be created with genuine leather, cork, or faux leather. They’re super easy to make by cutting the leather on your Cricut machine. You can easily cut all of these materials on your Cricut Explore Air or Cricut Maker. Cut the leather materials and add earring hooks and findings and you’re ready to go.
Disclosure: This page may contain affiliate links. If you purchase through these links, I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.
My Favorite Cricut Machine Options
Cutting Tool and Accessory Essentials
Must Have Earring Tools
Must-Have Earring Findings
Heat Press Essentials
Heat Transfer Vinyl
I used to only purchase Cricut brand HTV; however, the colors are very limited. I know enjoy the large range of HTV colors available on Amazon. Check them out here.
Pinched Leather Earrings YouTube Video Available
Details for making these pinched leather earrings can be seen in my YouTube video below. This blog post doesn’t include the Cricut Design Studio tips, so be sure to watch the video for those steps (and other key tips).
Example Pinched Leather Earring Projects
Light Purple Genuine Leather (Cricut setting: Genuine Leather)
Silver textured Genuine Leather (Cricut setting: Genuine Leather)
Black and White Houndstooth Cork
Black Faux Leather Linen Texture (Cricut Setting: Shimmer Leather)
Black and Burgundy Hounds Tooth Faux Leather (Cricut Setting: Shimmer Leather)
Burgundy Faux Leather (Cricut Setting: Shimmer Leather)
Vanilla Ivory Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Textured Gray Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Red Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Yellow Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Red Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Blue Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Red Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Yellow Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Arrowhead Charms
Red Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Blue Genuine Leather (Cricut Setting: Genuine Leather)
Star Charms
Pinched Leather Earrings SVG File
You can find many templates for your earrings on Design Bundles, Pinterest and Etsy. Some bloggers offer them for free and others are available for sale on various websites.
For these pinched leather earrings I used this SVG file. It worked out great!
Materials Cricut Settings
See notes above under each project photo to see what I chose for my material setting.
Click on the Browse All Materials link to see the menu of materials options on your Cricut.
If I’m using Cricut faux leather, I always select the Cricut faux leather option from the Browse materials menu when I’m cutting a single layer of faux leather.
If you’re using non-Cricut faux leather, the Shimmer Leather option normally works best. This is also the setting I often use when I’ve used Heat N Bond to glue two layers of Cricut faux leather together before I make a cut.
For this project, I used genuine leather any time I cut genuine leather material. I also use the genuine leather setting when I use Heat n Bond to adhere two thicker pieces of faux leather together before I make my cuts.
Earring size
I love these pinched leather earrings! They have a narrow earring size which creates such a classic look. For these earrings, I set my height to 2.5″ tall by 1″ wide.
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. Be sure to move the star wheels when cutting genuine leather so that you don’t get track marks on your genuine leather.
Cricut Blade
Make sure you are using the right blade.
You can cut faux leather, faux suede, cork, and leather on the Cricut Explore Air and Cricut Maker. When cutting Cricut’s 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.
Placing material on the cutting mat(s)
The approach you use to place the material on your mat plays a big role in your pinched leather earrings 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 leather. Some people attach the material to the mat with 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.
My favorite approach is to use transfer tape on my mat. This approach keeps my mat clean and it also holds the material down really well because it’s super sticky.
I used strong grip for more challenging cuts and regular grip for other cuts. And sometimes I even use contact paper from the Dollar Tree. It’s not very strong so I only use it on materials without stretch and cuts that don’t have center cut outs.
I find that the center cutouts create a lot of pull on the material and I need something strong holding the material on my mat during the cut.
Leather face down or face up?
My answer: it depends.
I used to always face my materials with the good side facing down. But a lot has changed for me over the years, and more specifically recently as I’ve begun to cut more printed and soft textured leathers.
There is nothing worse than buying a beautiful printed leather and pulling it up from your mat to find that some of the print has pulled off. For this reason, I’ve begun to place these items onto my mat with the good side facing up. But beware, if you don’t have transfer tape on your mat you will leave a BIG mess behind.
Using a Cricut Brayer
After placing the material on the mat, I always use a Cricut Brayer roller to press it nicely onto your mat. Again, getting a good stick of the leather onto the mat is SUPER important for a good cut.
Making Earrings Two Sided
As I mentioned earlier, the back of some faux leather and faux suede earrings aren’t very attractive because they are often canvas or felt. I often cut an extra faux leather or faux 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 or canvas isn’t exposed.
There are two approaches I take to do this.
- Sometimes I cut the earrings and then glue them back to back. To do this, I glue two earrings together using either Crafter’s Pick Fabric glue or Aleene’s Fabric Glue.
- I glue two pieces of faux leather or cork sheets together using Heat n Bond BEFORE I cut the leather. This is my new FAVORITE way to work. By gluing them together before I cut, my cuts are beautiful and it saves me a ton of time. See my video above for this project to see how easy this is to do and how I do it.
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 a burnishing agent. I apply it with a toothpick along the edges. It’s great because it smooths the leather and helps better define the edges.
Place two holes in the top of the earring.
I use a leather punch to put the holes in my diy leather earrings. The tool linked above cuts through multiple layers of the earring at the same time and punches larger holes (2mm is the smallest).
I made a template for the holes by cutting a set of the earrings with holes on card stock.
I placed the card stock template on top of the earring and punched holes through the card stock template.
Decide which type of hooks you’ll use.
The basic fish hook earrings below are easy to work with. These are my favorite choice for pinched leather earrings.
French hooks with balls are also easy to work with. You don’t need pliers or jump ring tools to work with these hooks. There are links to various colors at the top of this post. That said, I always have to use pliers to work with the jump rings for the pinched part of the earring so I just stick with the regular wire hooks above verses the hooks with balls. A photo of the French hooks with balls is shown below.
Working with Earrings Hooks
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.
The jump ring tool and pliers below come in the kit linked above.
Open the hook
Take a close look at the loop closure at the bottom of the hook and figure out which side is the side that isn’t connected. You may need to lift the ball to see where the opening is.
Place pliers on one side of the bottom wire.
Then place another pair of pliers on the other side of it (the round circle at the bottom of the hook). Don’t place the pliers on the hook above the circle part.
Turn the pliers that is on the side of the circle that isn’t connected to open the loop so that you can put the earring onto the hook.
Open you jump ring.
A jump ring is a metal ring where the ends meet but are not welded together. This means that with the right tools, you can open it and use it to connect earring components.
When using jump rings, you must first which size of jump rings you want to use. When selecting a jump ring size, consider the impact it will have to the length of your earring hang. In addition, if you’re putting leather and other components into a jump ring consider the thickness of the material. Thicker materials may require a larger size jump ring.
For pinched earrings, I normally use a 6mm jump ring to create the pinch on my earring. The only exception is when I’m doing a single layer pinched earring with a very thin material. In those cases, I used a 4 mm jump ring.
Pick the color of jump rings that you’re going to use and find the location on the jump ring where the ends meet.
You’ll need to open the jump ring. These are the two tools that I often 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.
Pinch your earring onto your hook.
Continue to hold the jump ring and place the left hole of the back earring onto to the left opening of the jump ring.
Then place the left hole of the front leather layer onto the same side of the jump ring.
This is where it gets a little tricky. It might be best to watch the YouTube video because it is hard to describe in writing.
I then fold the front earring forward and place the right hole back onto the same side of the jump ring. This can be challenging and I sometimes have to use my pliers to move my jump ring closer to the hole.
I watch along the back to see the jump ring poke back through the back of the earring.
Once the front layer is on the jump ring, place the right hole of the back layer onto the same side of the jump ring as well. This one can also be a bit challenging.
Close the jump ring.
Once you get the jump ring through the entire earring as described above, use the two sets of pliers (or a set of pliers along with a jump ring tool) to close the jump ring.
Pinch the top of the earring and pull the jump ring from the back side over the top to the front of the earring, creating a hold for the pinch.
Add the hook onto the jump ring and close the earring hook.
And that’s it! Your pinched leather earrings are finished!
Check out other DIY Earrings Below
Everyday Earrings DIY
- Pinched Leather Earrings DIY (Narrow)
- Leather Hoops
- Leather Earrings with Chains
- Circle Cut Out Earrings with Strap
- Leather Bar Earrings DIY
- How to Emboss Leather Earrings
- DIY Angled Fringe Earrings
- Leather Circle Earrings
- DIY Fringe Leaf-Shaped Earrings
- Cross leather earrings
- FRI-YAY Leather Earring DIY
- Leather Bar Earrings DIY (with metal charm)
- How to Make Genuine Leather Earrings
- Statement Earrings
- Teardrop Cork Earrings
- Hollow Faux Leather Earrings – Teardrop and Leaf Shaped
- Faux Leather Tall Stacked Earrings
- Faux Leather Circle Earrings
- Split Teardrop Faux Leather Earrings
- Faux Leather Stacked Marquise Earrings
- Stacked, wavy earrings – KSU
- Faux leather leaf cutout earrings
- Faux Leather earrings with fringe
- Faux Leather Teardrop Earrings
- Faux Leather Bar Earrings
- Faux Leather Leaf Earrings
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
- 40 Great Valentine’s Day DIY Earrings
- LOVE Leather Earrings DIY
- Valentine’s Day earrings DIY (heart shape)
- Heart Earrings DIY (Iron On)
- Heart Earrings DIY (with heart cutout)
- DIY Valentine’s Day Earrings
St. Patrick’s Day Earrings
Easter Earrings
Winter-Themed Earrings DIY
- Snowflake Cutout Teardrop Faux Leather Earrings
- Snowman Leather Iron On Earrings
- Buffalo Check Snowman Cutout Earrings
Christmas -Themed Earrings DIY
