Whether you need a catch-all tray for the entryway, or fancy a new dice tray to hit a d20 in your next role playing session, this tutorial will show you how to create your own from scratch using faux leather and machine embroidery! Follow along with the project instructions below.
Supplies & Materials:
- Faux leather fabric
- Medium cut away stabilizer
- Temporary spray adhesive
- Ruler or straight edge
- Embroidery thread
- 5/8" heavy duty snaps
- Scissors
- Air erase or leather marking pen
To start your dice or catch-all tray, first print the PDF pattern for the size tray you want. If the pattern is larger than a piece of printer paper, line up the pattern pieces using the included registration marks and secure the paper pieces together with a piece of tape.
After joining the pattern pieces, trace the pattern with an air erase pen on the wrong side of your material. We are using faux leather in this tutorial. Repeat this twice. One piece will be the top of the catch-all tray and the other will be the bottom layer of the catch-all.
Cut out the two pieces of your material for the tray.
Use your air-erase or leather marking pen to transfer the snap placement dots from the pattern to one of the tray pieces. You can also print a template of the design using embroidery software. If you do not have embroidery software, cut a piece of plain paper to the dimensions of your design,
Next, use your template or your previous measurements to draw additional crosshairs on the stablizer using a ruler and an air-erase pen.
Hoop the stabilizer with the crosshairs centered.
Use temporary spray adhesive to adhere the faux leather to the hooped stabilizer. Be sure that your crosshairs are lined up.
Center the needle on the crosshairs and begin to sew out the design.
If using multiple colors, continue to follow the color change sheet to embroider the rest of the design.
After sewing, remove from the hoop and cut away the stabilizer from the bottom of the tray.
Next, use temporary spray adhesive to adhere the front and back tray pieces together.
Secure the two piece of leather together using a sewing machine. We used a straight stitch, leaving roughly a 1/4" border around the edge.
If necessary, trim the edges of the catch-all tray so that they lay evenly together on all sides.
Finally, install the snaps on each of the four corners of the tray, positioning them so that the male and female parts are facing up, and the back of the hardware is facing down. Follow instructions specific to the manufacturer that you choose for your hardware. For this project, we use Dritz 5/8" heavy duty snaps.
Once the snaps are in place, snap the edges together and your catch-all tray is complete!
