My wife’s side of the family has a tradition of doing a Secret Santa among the grown-ups. With other words, everyone pulls a name from a hat, and then you need to get a present for that person. Each year it has been very easy to guess who has gotten a gift from me, and this year is no exception.
As my parents-in-law were visiting us from abroad, I decided to make something quick and simple so they can take it with them instead of me sending it by post. I had some very nice vegetable tanned 2mm thick nappa leather which is dyed with a semi aniline rusty brown dye. I hadn’t made anything out of it earlier, but now was the perfect time to test it out by making a simple card holder. It can fit two stacked cards on each side, and additional cards or bills on the center.
It’s a pretty simple construction, but looks good in my opinion.The design is slim, even though the leather is still quite sturdy.
Build Log:
The design is very simple, and the construction consists only of two small pieces sandwiched on the center and a larger piece wrapped around to the sides.I treated the insides with tokonole cream to make it more smooth and sturdy.As this is for Secret Santa, I of course added my maker’s mark to it…The inside pocket is the first thing to be glued together after roughing the sides. I had to be very careful to not mark the leather while clamping it.Next (and the last) thing to be glued is the outside that wraps around the bottom of the holder.Now that the whole thing has been glued, it was time to stitch it. I used a very small bricking irons with only 2.5mm hole distance.The dark brown thread I used was 0.5mm thick. The sides were sanded with 600 grit, and slicked with tokonole to a shiny finish.Done!The fit is perfect, and the leather has enough give to fit multiple cards.
