Introduction: Simple DIY Cards Holder

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This is a really simple cards holder I made using a cheap piece of leather I bought online. I used a 15x20cm piece of leather and some fabric.

I actually made two of them. One is made of black leather and white nubuk and the other one is made of mahogany leather and some nice looking fabric (this is the one I filmed).

Each one of those cost me less than 5€ and this project requires only a few tools :

  • an exacto knife
  • contact cement (or fabric cement)
  • 2 needles and some sewing thread
  • Some leather chisels

BTW : I'm not a native english speaker therefore I may be doing some mistakes. Sorry for that.

Step 1: Cutting the Pieces

This step is really simple. I will use the whole width of the piece so I just drew a line parallel to the side and cut with my exacto knife. The dimensions of the back pieces are 20x7cm.

The 2 small pieces are identicals but reversed. I took a 14x7cm piece and drew a mark 6 cm from the right edge on the top then drew another mark 6 cm from the left edge on the bottom. i then cut along the lign joining the two marks and this gave me my 2 identical pieces.

As shown in the video, I used some random round object to use as a template for rounding the corners.

Step 2: Gluing the Fabric and Sanding the Pieces

Here I made a mistake by gluing the fabric to the leather with contact cement and so the result is not as good as it should be. That's why I advise you to use a fabric's purpose glue. I tried it on a second attempt and it worked really nice.

After gluing the biggest piece and the fabric you can now sand all the edges of the 2 small pieces of leather.

Step 3: Gluing the Pieces Together

I first finished the edges of the interiors that will be difficult to acces once everything is sewed. I used some black edge kote from Fiebing's. Then I proceed to gluing all the pieces and sanding the edges. Remember that contact cement requires a curing time before you press the two pieces together

Step 4: Sewing Everything Together

I made my stitching holes approximately 3-4mm from the border using my chisels. I also made holes where there is only one layer for aesthetics purpose.

I then sewed the pieces together using the two needle method (actually I don't know if there is a name for that but you can see how I did on the video). Be sure to not over tighten your threads or the leather might crack.

As you can see in the video, I don't even own a stitching pony so I had to improvise and used a big book with a hard cover and a woodworking clamp.

Step 5: Color Coating the Edges

Finally I applied the black edge kote from Fiebing's on all the edges.

I hope you enjoyed this project. Thank you and don't hesitate to send me a message if you have any question.