DIY Patriotic Earrings (and a FREE cut file!!!)

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Looking for a quick project to jazz up your 4th of July attire? How about these cute DIY Patriotic Earrings? They’re a great way to use of scraps of faux leather as well as leftover bits and pieces of Sparkleberry patterned HTV. (Yes, I do keep my scraps. They’re much too pretty to waste!!!)

Earring designs are small enough to cut easily on any Silhouette machine – the Cameo, Portrait or Curio. I’ve even provided the cut files for you so grab some faux leather, a little Sparkleberry, and let’s get started!

What You’ll Need

• Faux Leather – red, white, and blue for the solid earrings and scraps of any color for the Sparkleberry earrings
• Scraps of Sparkleberry Heat Transfer Vinyl in two coordinating prints
• Heat Press or Iron
• Cut File (see below)
• Silhouette Studio
• Silhouette Cameo, Portrait, or Curio
• Xyron Sticker Maker
• Brayer or similar tool
• Earwires
• Diamond Tip Reamer (optional)

Click here to download the free cut files:

Patriotic Earrings – Studio file

Patriotic Earrings – SVG file

 

Sparkleberry Earrings

1. Begin by pressing the Sparkleberry HTV to a scrap piece of faux leather – you won’t need much, nor will you have to press for very long! I found that I only needed to press for 2-3 seconds at 305 degrees for the heat transfer vinyl to adhere well to the faux leather.

 

2. Open the file in Silhouette Studio. Position the design on your screen in an area that corresponds to where you’ve placed the faux leather on your cutting mat. I used long, narrow scraps of faux leather, so I set up my design in columns.

 

3. Cut the earrings pieces. My scrap was Walmart faux leather and the cut settings needed no adjustment for the addition of HTV (Blade 10, Speed 1, Force 18, Passes 1). I recommend you always make a Test Cut before cutting out a new material.

 

4. Once the faux leather is cut, apply adhesive to the wrong side of the backing piece. (My favorite way to apply the adhesive is with the Xyron Sticker Maker. You can see me demo it here.)

 

5. Match the front pieces of the earring to the backing. Begin with the largest piece and then add the remaining pieces one at a time. Once all the pieces are in place, roll with a brayer or similar tool to firmly bond the layers and smooth out areas where the edges of the faux leathers meet.

6. Add some Double J Earwires from Craft Chameleon and you are done!

The patterns I used were Stars Over Blue and Red and White Stripes but I think these would look great with any combination of Sparkleberry, don’t you?

 

Solid Faux Leather Earrings

To make the solid faux leather earrings, simply skip step 1 and go right to cutting. This solid faux leather is from Gayle’s Nest and my cut settings were:

Blade=10     Speed=1     Force=33     Passes=2

 

Cutting the stars did prove to be a little bit of a challenge, so make sure that you’re using a very sticky mat. You may also want to secure the faux leather even further by placing painter’s tape around the edges.

 

Bonus Pair!

Use the negative space from the cut to make an additional pair of earrings! Add an earwire hole to the area before sending the job to cut or use this handy reamer tool (like I did!) to poke a hole in the faux leather after it has been cut.

 

Faux leather earrings are fun, fashionable, and can be suited to any occasion. The creative possibilities are virtually endless! Be sure to check out my other faux leather earring posts for even more inspiration.

 

DIY Faux Leather Earrings using your Silhouette Cameo or Portrait

DIY Faux Leather Earrings Using Hobby Lobby Faux Leather Ribbon

More DIY Faux Leather Earrings – and a FREE cut file!

Beyond Faux Leather: Specialty Materials for DIY Earrings

 

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I’d love to see YOUR creations! Come share them over in my Facebook group – and be sure to subscribe to the blog so you don’t miss a single post!

Until next time,

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