In this short and brief 'ible I will be walking you through how I made (and how you could make) your own minimalist leather wallet.

Materials:

Leather

Waxed Thread

Leather Needles

Leather Stitching Punches

Optional:

Laser Cutter

Stitiching Saddle

Dye and Applicator

Step 1: Cut the Design

I used a Glowforge laser cutter to cut the design from a 4-6oz piece of leather. Just measure the items you want to put into the wallet to get the dimensions and add around 1/8th of an inch all the way around. The design I used already had holes cut for threading, but a quick Amazon search or trip to your big box craft supplier should yield you the supplies you need. I ended up punching the holes again with a leather stitching punch one at a time to enlarge the holes. I used a dark brown dye on my leather for an aged look.

Step 2: Stitching

If you dyed your leather you will need to let it dry overnight or better and let the leather stiffen back up a bit. Choose a thread and grab your needles, this part is tricky. A stitching saddle really comes in handy, and I didn't have one. So I used an old (and cheap) Harbor Freight wood clamp. I added to the clamp a small piece of oak on each side (be sure to ease the sharp edges over with some sandpaper), glued perpendicular to the clamp. I added some light weight leather with rubber cement. You can hold the clamp in your lap as you stitch. I used a saddle stitch sewing both pieces together. You could use some glue or rubber cement to help hold the working pieces together as you sew, but I didn't and it only took about 20 minutes to get both sides zipped up.

**Full disclosure, this is the first leather thing I have ever made, so I'm not going to pretend to know the ins and outs of leather craft, but I learned by watching Jimmy Diresta and other people on Youtube. So with this instructable and a couple others online you should do just fine.

*Note, the piece in the clamp is not the wallet, something else I was working on.

Step 3: Finished!

Finished! Told you it was minimalist...

The pictures here are from both my first (Chase card) and second (blue stitches). It needs to be worked in a bit. The leather will stretch and getting your cards out will get easier over time. A friend for work saw mine and loved it so much he commissioned one on the spot! I absolutely love this thing. It holds about 5 cards and a couple of bills, which is all I ever carry. It seems like every time I take it out to get something out of it someone asks me about it.