Add a touch of magic to your everyday carry! In this tutorial, we’ll be stitching up a delightful unicorn bag charm that’s as fun to make as it is to show off. The real enchantment comes to life as we layer a rainbow of leather pieces to create its flowing, colorful mane. Get ready to craft a little piece of fantasy that will brighten up your keys, bag, or interior!
Print it on US letter or A4 paper depending on the version you downloaded.
Make sure that the pattern is not resized by checking your print settings. You can check if it was printed properly by measuring the reference found at the bottom of each page.
Keep the assembly diagram to help you position the pieces later on during the stitching process.
Securing the pieces of the pattern on the leather
Roughly cut-out around the different elements of the pattern and secure them to your piece of leather with masking tape.
Punching the holes
Use stitching prongs or a 1mm hole punch to punch the stitching holes directly on top of the paper.
Use a 3mm hole punch to punch the holes that will accommodate the rivet on the O-ring strap (element annotated S on the pattern) and a 5mm hole punch for the eyes on both sides of the body (C).
Cutting-out the pieces of the project
Using a pair of scissors or an X-Acto knife, cut-out all the pieces of the project.
You’ll notice that elements T are ridiculously small and may prove difficult to cut-out. Those are optional. Please refer to the last step (ie: Finishing touches) to decide if you’d like to use them or not.
Painting/dyeing the leather
This is a fun project to paint as it showcases all the colors of the rainbow to create the fabulous mane! I used Angelus leather paints and metallic gold paint for the O-ring tab.
Create a loop at the end of the O-ring strap (S) with a rivet, using your rivet setter to set it up.
Gluing the eyes
Set the plastic eyes in place in their sockets.
Apply a generous amount of glue to the backside in order to secure them in place and wait for it to dry completely.
Stitching the horn
To stitch together both halves of the horn (F), first join two opposite edges with a cross-stitch starting at the second hole from the base.
Do the same with the other two opposite edges (stopping at the second hole from the base) to complete the horn. You can loop the thread to fill-in the space between each pair of holes to create the appearance of rings on the horn.
Finally add some stuffing to the horn to shape the cone.
Stitching it all together
Stitch the cheeks (A) and the hearts (B) to both halves of the body (C1 and C2).
Next stitch the hooves and the two halves of the body together (E1 and D1 over C1, E2 and D2 over C2).
You can also stitch them during the next step which would be easier to do. I wanted to use a different thread color for the hooves compared to the body’s which is why I sewed them separately.
Stitching the mane involves a lot of overlapping pieces thus I’ll give you the detail of what’s going on for each hole. In each case, I will list all the layers that the needle will go through in the overlapping order, assuming that it first enters through the back of the body (C2).
If you look at the assembly diagram, you’ll see that we start stitching one hole before the first element of the mane. Let’s number this starting hole hole 0.
hole 1: starting at the back, our needle goes through C2 -> G -> C1
hole 7: C2 -> K2 (ear) -> J -> L -> K1 (ear) -> M -> C1
hole 8: C2 -> L -> C1
hole 9: C2 -> L -> N -> C1
hole 10: C2 -> F (horn) -> L -> F (horn) -> C1
hole 11: C2 -> F (horn) -> F (horn) -> C1
Add the snout (O1 and O2) over each side of the face.
At that point you can start adding stuffing inside the body.
Stitch the 3 pieces of the tail (P over Q over R) in between the two halves of the body.
Stitch the O-ring’s strap (S) in between the two halves of the body and finish stitching the unicorn.
Finishing touches
The small pieces T1 and T2 represent the cavity of the ears. You could simply paint that detail over the white background of each ear K1 and K2. I tried it out and thought that it looked rather flat compared to the other details of the unicorn which is why I decided to glue another piece instead. However if you don’t want to deal with such tiny pieces know that painting those details instead is completely fine.
Using leathercraft glue or superglue, glue the two ear’s (K1 and K2) pink details (T1 and T2) in place.
Finally add the O-ring carabiner to the strap to complete your bag charm.
Final result
I hope you enjoyed following along this tutorial. Please consider posting a photo of your creation in the comments below. It would mean a lot to me to see my little projects out into the world as you make them your own.
Any feedback/question about this tutorial or project idea that you’d like to see posted here is and always will be more than welcome.
Happy crafting!
Footnotes
The following online content provided some assistance and/or inspiration during the making of this project:
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Tutorial
Unicorn Bag Charm
3 hours
Easy
Common for leathercraft
Add a touch of magic to your everyday carry! In this tutorial, we’ll be stitching up a delightful unicorn bag charm that’s as fun to make as it is to show off. The real enchantment comes to life as we layer a rainbow of leather pieces to create its flowing, colorful mane. Get ready to craft a little piece of fantasy that will brighten up your keys, bag, or interior!
Requirements
Skills
Tools
Bill of Materials
Pattern
Unicorn Bag Charm Pattern
2,00 €Walk-through
Printing the pattern
You can get the pattern here if you haven’t already.
Print it on US letter or A4 paper depending on the version you downloaded.
Make sure that the pattern is not resized by checking your print settings. You can check if it was printed properly by measuring the reference found at the bottom of each page.
Keep the assembly diagram to help you position the pieces later on during the stitching process.
Securing the pieces of the pattern on the leather
Roughly cut-out around the different elements of the pattern and secure them to your piece of leather with masking tape.
Punching the holes
Use stitching prongs or a 1mm hole punch to punch the stitching holes directly on top of the paper.
Use a 3mm hole punch to punch the holes that will accommodate the rivet on the O-ring strap (element annotated S on the pattern) and a 5mm hole punch for the eyes on both sides of the body (C).
Cutting-out the pieces of the project
Using a pair of scissors or an X-Acto knife, cut-out all the pieces of the project.
You’ll notice that elements T are ridiculously small and may prove difficult to cut-out. Those are optional. Please refer to the last step (ie: Finishing touches) to decide if you’d like to use them or not.
Painting/dyeing the leather
This is a fun project to paint as it showcases all the colors of the rainbow to create the fabulous mane! I used Angelus leather paints and metallic gold paint for the O-ring tab.
Setting the rivet on the O-ring strap
Create a loop at the end of the O-ring strap (S) with a rivet, using your rivet setter to set it up.
Gluing the eyes
Set the plastic eyes in place in their sockets.
Apply a generous amount of glue to the backside in order to secure them in place and wait for it to dry completely.
Stitching the horn
To stitch together both halves of the horn (F), first join two opposite edges with a cross-stitch starting at the second hole from the base.
Do the same with the other two opposite edges (stopping at the second hole from the base) to complete the horn. You can loop the thread to fill-in the space between each pair of holes to create the appearance of rings on the horn.
Finally add some stuffing to the horn to shape the cone.
Stitching it all together
Stitch the cheeks (A) and the hearts (B) to both halves of the body (C1 and C2).
Next stitch the hooves and the two halves of the body together (E1 and D1 over C1, E2 and D2 over C2).
You can also stitch them during the next step which would be easier to do. I wanted to use a different thread color for the hooves compared to the body’s which is why I sewed them separately.
Stitching the mane involves a lot of overlapping pieces thus I’ll give you the detail of what’s going on for each hole. In each case, I will list all the layers that the needle will go through in the overlapping order, assuming that it first enters through the back of the body (C2).
If you look at the assembly diagram, you’ll see that we start stitching one hole before the first element of the mane. Let’s number this starting hole hole 0.
Add the snout (O1 and O2) over each side of the face.
At that point you can start adding stuffing inside the body.
Stitch the 3 pieces of the tail (P over Q over R) in between the two halves of the body.
Stitch the O-ring’s strap (S) in between the two halves of the body and finish stitching the unicorn.
Finishing touches
The small pieces T1 and T2 represent the cavity of the ears. You could simply paint that detail over the white background of each ear K1 and K2. I tried it out and thought that it looked rather flat compared to the other details of the unicorn which is why I decided to glue another piece instead. However if you don’t want to deal with such tiny pieces know that painting those details instead is completely fine.
Using leathercraft glue or superglue, glue the two ear’s (K1 and K2) pink details (T1 and T2) in place.
Finally add the O-ring carabiner to the strap to complete your bag charm.
Final result
I hope you enjoyed following along this tutorial. Please consider posting a photo of your creation in the comments below. It would mean a lot to me to see my little projects out into the world as you make them your own.
Any feedback/question about this tutorial or project idea that you’d like to see posted here is and always will be more than welcome.
Happy crafting!
Footnotes
The following online content provided some assistance and/or inspiration during the making of this project: