Reindeer Faux Leather Earrings

These Christmas DIY earrings are perfect for the holiday season.

These reindeer faux leather earrings feature an intricate cut reindeer. They cut really easily on Cricut brand faux leather. And I love that that you can give it different looks by adding a pattern or different color to the back.

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Check out my favorite diy earring essentials list on my Amazon storefront here!
If you’d prefer to watch a tutorial, see my YouTube video below.

What You’ll Need:

Cricut Machine – I recommend the Cricut Explore Air 2 or the Cricut Maker.
black faux leather (I love Cricut brand faux leather because it cuts intricate details better than other faux leathers). And you can make a lot of earrings with one roll!
Faux leather for the back teardrop- I made three different pair of earrings, each with a different back earring design. The pattern design is from my Christmas faux leather set that I bought on Amazon. The green design is the Cricut faux leather Peacock color. The red was part of a different assortment of faux leather that I purchased on Amazon.
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 Mats – You need new or very sticky Cricut mats. The green mats work fine for this project because we’re using faux leather.

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 cutcraftdiy.com. Here is the single reindeer cut file or you can buy it as part of a winter teardrop earring SVG bundle. I have the bundle and use several of the cut files.

Pick the materials/colors for your faux leather earrings.

I linked my materials above. Keep in mind that this reindeer ha intricate cuts. I highly recommend you use a Cricut faux leather for the reindeer cut.

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 “reindeer.” 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.

Click on the Images icon on the left.

Making snowman faux leather earrings on the cricut machine

Tip: to easily find my upload files, I usually filter by “uploaded.”

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).

making diy faux leather earrings in Cricut Design Space

This is what it looks like after being added to your project. It is a very large file. You can see the dimensions where the blue arrow points.

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. The earrings in this cut file come in EXTREMELY big so you will need to re-size them. This one came it at 24″ tall. I changed it to 2.5 height. The other dimension auto-adjusted.

To fix it, I just typed 2.5″ into the height field to resize it.

Add the reindeer earring by clicking on the reindeer earring and then clicking on Duplicate

Flip one of the earrings.

Since this design isn’t symmetrical (the antlers on one side are slightly different than the other, you might want to flip one of the earrings.

After clicking the Flip icon (see arrown below), select Horizontal. This will flip the earring.

Select the 2nd file and click the Insert Images button.

The next step is to insert the cut file for the earring component that will be behind the reindeer earring.

To pull that cut file onto the mat, click the Images button again.

I’m going to use the file that the arrow points to below. Once I select it, I click the green button.

Re-size second earring component as needed.

This file also came in gigantic, at 24″ high. We need to change the size for this one too. However, this file actually has two images, the teardrop and a snowman. The 24″ is the height of both of the earrings. I changed it to a 5″ height.

Note that this file that I’m using (that came with the bundle has this snowman attached to the plain tear drop. he image below is just showing that there is a snowman under the teardrop. I am going to cut the snowman because I’m going to make a bunch of earrings these snowmen.

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, 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. We don’t need to do that for this project. We can just go ahead and change the colors. Since the front component with the reindeer cutout will remain black I didn’t change that one. I just changed the color of the back one to red. To change the color, click on the image you want to work with and then click the color as shown by the blue arrow below.

Confirm sizing is right.

Often, you will do an estimate on the sizing on the back earring so you’ll want to be sure you like how the components layer.

Sometimes when you try to take a look, the front earring component won’t show on the front of the stack. Notice how the black reindeer (front layer) is showing up behind the red earring instead of in front of it.

To fix this, right click on the image that you want to move and you’ll see the menu below. If the image is in the back, you’ll see an option to send it to the front. If the image you’ve clicked on is in the front, it will show an option to send it to the back.

Making the modification will help you see how the layers work out. And you’re able to see how much of the back earring is peeking out. Sometimes I match the size of my back earring to the front and other times I like it to be a bit bigger so that it shows off the color. Since so much of this earring is cutout already, I want both layers of my earring to be the same size.

To resize it, click on the red component and click on the lower right hand corner and drag it inward until the two shapes match up in size. You can see how the sizes match up below.

Remember, that snowman on the bottom is there because I couldn’t figure out how to delete it.

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.

You need to make one copy of the front earring.

Take a look at the back of the back earring to see what the material looks like. Sometimes the back of faux leather isn’t very cute, and sometimes the back of the earring shows. For this reason, I typically cut an extra set of the backs so that I can glue the back pieces, back to back. For example, see the back of my fabric below.

The canvas below shows all my duplicate pieces. I just selected the piece I wanted to copy and clicked on the Duplicate button. And, of course, since that snowman is connected, I get 4 of those too. But I have fun plans for those.

Note: If you want half of your snowman scarves to face different directions be sure to click on the Flip button and select the Horizontal option.

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 leather or faux suede 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. I have clicked the button for each mat to turn the mirror on.

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 leather, 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 Leather.

For the black leather, I chose Faux Leather from the materials options. The Cricut logo at the right means that the specifications are set exactly correct for Cricut brand product.

For the faux leathers that I cut that were NOT Cricut brand, I used the Shimmer Leather 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. You won’t be prompted to do this step for faux leather, but just in case you select a faux suede option (if you’re trying to cut through something thicker), I’m including this information in this post.

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 leather, 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 leather or suede on the mat, you’ll want to look at the back of it to determine what is is made of. The back of these are often 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 place my material on my mats good side down (when they have a felt back).

Also, I like to determine how much of the leather or 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 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 the faux suede onto your mat. I don’t have one of those so I usually use a dough roller.

Continue placing the material (faux leather or faux suede) 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. Be very careful not to cut any of the earring, you’re only cutting the fuzz.

Place a hole in the top of the earring.

This cut file already has holes so you don’t need to put holes into the earrings.

When my earrings don’t have holes, 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. 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.

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

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 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 a hook onto a jump ring for each earring.

My new best practice is to put a jump ring onto the hook and to close the jump ring. I do this before I even begin to put the earring components onto a jump ring.

Put earrings and hook into a jump ring.

Open another jump ring and put the earrings onto the open jump ring.

Puttnig the earring components onto the hooks and jump rings

Then attach your hook to the open jump ring, making sure the hook faces towards the back.

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

And that’s it! Your reindeer faux leather earrings are done and dashing!

Wondering what I did with the snowmen cutouts?

I made the cutest earrings with the snowman cutouts. I used my Cricut weeder tool to poke a hole in them and then hung them in front of a basic teardrop earring. They’re darling.

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