Leather Charm Tassel Tutorial

I love this embossed leather and have been having fun finding all sorts of ways to use it in my jewelry. I created this tassel with a small ribbon clamp and wire-wrapping beads around it for a little extra embellishment.

Supplies:

5/8” x 1 ½” leather strip

16mm copper ribbon clamp

11/0 seed beads

Leaf charm

8 ½” 26 gauge brass colored wire

4mm copper jump ring

6mm copper jump ring

1. Evenly cut the end of the leather into 1/8” strips, leaving the top half inch of the leather uncut.

2. Wrap the end of the wire around one side the ribbon clamp two times. With the wire facing the front of the ribbon clamp string seed beads as the same length as the clamp. Wrap the wire around the front of the clamp again. String on another row of seed beads. Wrap the wire around the front of the clamp two more times. Make sure the wire is wrapped very tightly each time. Trim the end of the wire so it is shorter than the clamp.

3. Insert the leather piece into the clamp, use chain nose pliers to close the clamp tightly, squeezing under the beads to close it securely. Re-position the rows of beads if needed so they lay straight across the clamp.

4. Add the leaf charm to the 4mm jump ring, close the jump ring. Add the ribbon clamp loop and the leaf jump ring to a 6mm jump ring.

Resources:

Leather: PeggySueAlso.etsy.com. Leaf charm and jump rings: YadanaBeads.etsy.com. Seed Beads: WhimBeads.com. Ribbon clamps: WhiteWillowCreek.etsy.com.

In the example I paired up my leather charm tassel with coordinating disk and birds from Humblebeads.com and a round ceramic beads from FireflyDesignStudio.etsy.com. The branch connectors are from NunnDesign.com.

My Gilded Bramble Birds are now part of my regular line of beads that can be found at humblebeads.com.