Leather work for kids.

Some kind friends gave us the leather from an old sofa they were throwing out.

The girls and I spent a day getting inventive with ideas for using it.

Emmy and Bujana made Sioux medicine pouches, using these online instructions...



First they drew and cut out the pieces. Then they punched holes along the bottom edges using a hole punch.



They sewed the sides and bottom of the pouches right sides together using a denim sewing needle and a long basting stitch ( about 6 on a regular machine) and reinforced this with an over stitch through the holes.



After measuring equal spaces along the top of the pouch they punched holes for threading leather cord through to make a draw string.



The drawstring was held in place with some wooden beads...



Perfect for those long Summer hikes!



Seraphina, Matilda and I cut stripes of leather into cords and made some bracelets...



 I helped the little ones make some leather bookmarks.



I traced around a tin pencil case to get the rectangular shape and helped them cut around the line.

They frayed the ends and punched holes along the edges using a hole puncher.

Lastly we wove some thin leather stripes that we had cut out earlier through the holes and secured them in place using some funky stitching patterns on our sewing machine!