Leather Checkerboard Stocking Stuffer

This leather project is very fun to do and can be done by and level leathercrafter. For a reversable checker/chess board sew another piece of leather on and you will have a reversable side! I am not including pieces because I have not thought of any. I think I will be making leather pieces for an instructable someday! Enjoy. This is a low cost from the heart gift for any time of the year..

Step 1: Get Your Leather

Find your leather, I love utilizing and paying for scraps because I pay 6$ for 3lbs of scraps at hobby lobby. Unfortunatly this is the biggest piece I had.

Step 2:

Get the leather wet, depending on how thick it is is how wet you should get it, I soaked mine in water because it was very thick.

Step 3:

Cut a square, mine ended up being 4 1/2 in x 4 1/2 in . Doing the math that is 81 squares total 

Step 4:

You wil now need a marble or hard surface to carve on, swivel knife, pencil and ruler. 

Step 5:

Its hard to see but on each side measure off every half inch. 

Step 6:

Connect the lines with the ruler horiziontally and vertically no reason to push hard you will be able to see it fine in real life

Step 7:

With the swivel knife trace the lines you drew. starting to look awesome.

Step 8:

Using your modeling  spoon or beveling , make the squares pop out  by pushing down on the lines.

Step 9:

Alternate painting red   on each square. Heres a tip...this is acrylic paint, its 9$ a bottle...for leather. Acrylic is acrylic you can use regular acrylic=) save your money 

Step 10:

Paint black and do touchups. It dries extremely fast. Now your ready to give your gift! Takes about 2 hours total.