Painted Leather Cuff with StencilGirl® Stencils

Hi, everyone! Kimberly Baxter Packwood here to show you how to create a painted leather cuff with StencilGirl® Products!

Here are the supplies you'll need:

Leather cuff blank 3” wide

Acrylic paints

Paint Brush

StencilGirl® Products Stencils

Sponges or an old rag for distressing the paint

Water for rinsing brushes

Pen or Pencil or a fine tipped marker in a color similar to your color palette

Sand paper for distressing paint and leather

Sealer: Top Kote, Tan Kote, or Super Sheen

***Markers or pens for adding details if desired.

Snaps and a snap setting tool if your cuff didn’t come with any, and a snap setting tool.

NOTE: If you buy a cuff blank that has already been dyed, you will want to distress the surface with sand paper so that your paint will adhere to the leather surface.

Lay your cuff out flat on your work table, you may find using double stick tape to get it to lay flat to be helpful.

Apply your top coat of paint, I went with a medium value turquoise color and then added in three other values of turquoise, both blue based and green based along with ivory and a maize color for the cuff base, and plum and black for the crow.

I painted both sides of the cuff along with the edges.
Allow paint to dry completely between layers of paint.

NOTE: If your cuff has a snap already attached you can cover it up with painters tape, unless you want it to be painted as well.

After allowing the paint to dry, I used my lightest value turquoise paint and my Black Birds in Tree stencil to apply the initial layer of birds.

I used the corner of a paper towel to remove any raised paint areas from the leather, you could also sand those back once this layer of paint has dried.

Once that layer of birds had dried I took the next darker value of turquoise paint and using the same stencil I applied the next layer of birds, shifting the stencil so it angled a little bit to give the cuff added interest. And allowed that layer of paint to completely dry.

While the paint was drying I experimented on some scrap pieces of leather to see which distressing techniques I wanted to use for this cuff. I decided to use an ivory and a maize yellow chalkboard paint to create the distressed layer.

To distress the previous layers take some ivory maize colored chalk board paints and blend together, yielding a very pale yellow color. Apply in large strokes in a couple of places across the face of the cuff and then immediately remove most of it using a damp paper towel or shop rag.

I placed my stencil onto the cuff to see where I wanted the crow to be placed once I found a spot that I liked I used a pencil and lightly drew the crow onto the cuff.

Place the larger crow stencil back onto your cuff and lightly stencil the crow, I did several layers and finished the crow using a fine round brush.

After the crow design paint dried I applied more paint to the crow using a small paint brush to even the look out.

Once the paint is dry and you’re satisfied with the final design seal the paint using a leather sealer such as Tan Coat, or one of the ones listed above in the materials list.

It takes about 12 to 24 hours for the sealer to completely dry, once dry add any hardware you want to your cuff. Once the sealer has dried you can use a soft cloth like tee shirt material, to buff the sealer and improve the sheen of the final coat.

If  you want to add more paint after you’ve sealed to cuff just add it on top of the sealer and when that paint is has thoroughly dried add another layer of sealer.