I’m on a leather kick these days. I keep thinking of projects I want to make out of recycled leather. Which is good, because one of my recent ongoing projects started out like this:

A free leather couch that comes with a really long, crazy story. I want to tell you all about it, but I’m going to wait until the BIG project I’m planning is finished. I’m just not sure when that’s going to be because I keep hitting snags. But it’s coming. I promise.

In the meantime, I’ve been thinking about some other things I’d like to do with recycled leather, and earrings was high up there.

I’ve seen leather earrings online for years now, but I never thought about making them myself. Then my friend, Christy, made a pair, and I loved them. And I remembered some leather I thrifted years ago for just this kind of thing. (I was on a leather kick then, too, when I made this clutch from a thrifted leather jacket. I still use that clutch all the time, and it’s one of my most visited projects here on the blog.)

I bought this coat, thinking it might make another great clutch, but as is the story of my life, I never got around to it because other projects and ideas got in the way.

But, when you want to make a pair of earrings YESTERDAY ALREADY, the coat hanging in your closet seems perfect. I chopped off a sleeve and got to work.

I was going to free-hand an almond shape, but then I spied a wire hoop I made when practicing for these earrings, so I traced it onto cardstock and cut it out.

I used a Sharpie on the back of the leather to trace around the cardstock.

I cut them out with a regular pair of scissors, then I used an awl to poke a hole at the tops for the ear wire. I made my own ear hooks out of gold filled wire and added them on.

The whole process took less than 5 minutes, so I decided to make some more!

The back of the red leather has a dark orange tint, so I made a pair of those.

They look great with the new Mets hat I just bought for Little League games.

Then I tried a cut-out pair.

I really like how these turned out!

Now, I’ve been trying to clean that “free” tan couch for over a week. (Husband says, based on the amount of labor we’ve put into it, it can no longer be called “free”.)

As of Monday afternoon, I had a tiny piece of the tan leather that’s perfectly usable, so I made a pair of earrings out of that, too.

These might be my favorites. But the orange ones are a very close second.

If the BIG leather project doesn’t end up working out, I’m going to have A LOT of leather to work with, so, friends and relatives, you might be getting a pair of these for birthdays and Christmases for years to come. Hope you like tan!