how-to: leather purse handles

Earlier this month I told you about making leather handles for a felted bag. Someone asked how to make them, and voila! A tutorial was born! A disclaimer, however--I'm not much of a teacher, so my instructions may not make a lot of sense. To help see what the #@! I'm talking about, you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

Leather Purse Handle(s)

Materials needed:

• One leather strap, 1" wide and 37" long
• One 1" wide piece of scrap leather, or cardboard cut to 1" x 2"
• Two 1 1/4" O-rings
• One leather shoestring
• Leather punch
• large-hole beads (optional)

Where did I find a 1" leather strap? I'm glad you asked---I went to a local saddle-maker. The O-rings can be found at the local hardware store, and the leather shoestring can be found anywhere there are regular shoestrings.

If you want to use a strap of a different width, just keep in mind that the O-ring has to have an opening large enough to accommodate the strap. For example:

You've got to be able to thread the strap through the ring.

Cut the 37" strap into three pieces: one 24" length and two 6 1/2" lengths, like in the photo below:


Punch two holes about 1/2" apart in a scrap 1" piece of leather or cardboard cut to 1" wide. This will work as a template that will be used on both ends of each of the three pieces.

Placing the template over one end of the strap

Using the template, use the leather punch to create two holes 1/2" to 1" from each end of each strap.


Working with one of the short straps, thread a 6" piece of leather shoestring through 2 of the holes. In the photo below, the wrong side of the leather (the rough side), is facing up. Place the O-ring on the strap.

Now--the object is to bend this short strap in half, and sandwich one end of the long strap between. You're going to thread the shoestring through the long strap, then the bent half of the short strap, and tie them together. Here's a closeup of one end of the long strap, after tying the shoelace.


Repeat on the other end. You can either cut the shoestrings to make the ends shorter, or you can thread some large-holed beads onto them and knot them. If you decide to string beads onto the laces, make sure they don't hang down so long as to knock against the O-ring. Otherwise, the beads may break.

Here's a closeup of the ends - it may help make more sense of my instructions. See how the short straps wrap around the end?

In the closeup photo above, I haven't trimmed off the ends of the laces yet, as I'm not sure whether I'm going to keep the beads on or not.

So---there you have it! A nice sturdy shoulder strap for your next felted bag! Now crack that whip baby, and become a Leathergirl. Woohoo!