Faux Suede Earrings and Faux Leather earrings are everywhere. But no one compares the different products or techniques for making them until now. I made three pieces of each style so that I could make a matching necklace too.
Faux Suede earrings (and Faux Leather) are fairly easy to make but if you don’t use the right material they can turn out looking less than what you want. I purchased some cricut faux suede (the best) and some Hobby Lobby Faux suede (not as good but fixable) and made several types and here are my results.
What you will need
- Faux leather or suede
- some scraps of black cardstock (optional)
- Sharpie or permanent marker
- glue gun
- jump rings and jewelry findings
- pliers
- Deep Cut Blade
- painters tape
- Download File
Materials
Cricut Brand
I purchased two different types of Faux materials for making these earrings. The first was the Cricut Brand of Faux Suede. It worked well and the backing color was about the same as the front so no problem there. It came in a 4 pack of 12 x 12 sheets in a variety of solid colors. But it was definitely the more expensive brand at almost $20 a pack.
Hobby Lobby Faux Suede Ribbon
The other stuff I bought was from Hobby Lobby in the ribbon section. It was definitely cheaper and had much more variety in color and pattern. It was $4.99 a roll and was 8 inches by 24 inches (which is more than enough) and was on sale for 40% off. The one problem was I bought darker ribbon and the backing was white but I will show you how to “fix” that. I think if I had bought lighter material I would have been happier.
Jewelry Findings
Cutting the Materials
Both products are felt backed sorta. I tried the fabric mat first and then the regular grip mat. Both types of mat need me to tape the cricut brand down with painters tape. The Hobby Lobby ribbon wouldn’t tape down. The tape wouldn’t stick to it but it seemed to stay anyway on either mat. The mats worked about the same so I used the regular grip mat.
I tried cutting them with the rotary blade, the knife blade and the deep cut blade. Surprisingly, the deep cut blade worked the best and since you can use it on the maker and the Explore machines that is the blade I used.
For the drawings on the earrings I used a fine point sharpie. If you need to know how to make the sharpie work on your machine look here for the trick. That worked well but regular markers (non permanant) came off the Hobby Lobby Brand. I plan to try the foiling pens on them soon but I can’t use them yet. (They were an anniversary present and it isn’t my anniversary yet.)
Assembly
That did more to “fix” the problem than the black cardstock. Again if I had bought lighter colored material I don’t think this step would be necessary.
Conclusion
The cricut brand definitely made better quality but was more expensive to start. The Hobby Lobby Ribbon worked and were cheaper. The other advantage was the variety of patterns and colors in the Hobby Lobby brand. Choose whichever you like. They both make nice jewelry.
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