# Leather belt with forest animals.

# Introduction

Making belt is easy, because you don't have to think about the shape of your piece of leather.

Nevertheless, you must think about:

- The buckle. If you have a particular buckle to use, then it defines the width of the belt
- The width: If you don't have a buckle, you need to select the "best width".
    - A thin one is more subtle, but difficult to carve because you don't have that much width to use (<3cm)
    - (>4cm ) A large one is more imposing, easy to carve, but sometimes it's too large for jeans' loops.

The best I would recommend is 3.5 cm width.
Here, I selected the width based on the buckle, so 3.5 cm

For the length, it depends.
The maximum length I can order is 1m20
As I am svelte, my belt is less than 1m.
Here, I kept the 1m20 which lets a lot of space to draw stuff.

Concerning the thickness, between 2.5 and 3mm.
Less and you have a risk when carving the leather. Additionally, a belt may be subject to stretching.
It is better in that case to have a robust piece of leather.

About the type of leather used, this cow leather is often stronger than the one I regularly use for other projects (key-chains, bags, ...).
Therefore, the manipulation of the knife opener is harder.
I do not recommend beginners to start with this type of project.

Last difficulty is to find the pattern to put on.
Here, the main pattern is made of oak leaves.
On this one, there is no problem.



# Steps

Cutting the leather with the knife opener.

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/000_big.jpg)

Making contrast between items, to highlight which items is upfront.

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/001_big.jpg)

Making the background.

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/002_big.jpg)

Mark the leaves

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/003_big.jpg)

After drying

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/005_big.jpg)

Pattern by pattern:

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/006_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/007_big.jpg)

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/008_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/009_big.jpg)

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/010_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/011_big.jpg)

# Painting

This step spotlights the items.

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/016_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/015_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/014_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/013_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/012_big.jpg)

# Putting the Antic Finish

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/017_big.jpg)

Working Board

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/020_big.jpg)


![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/026_big.jpg)


![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/018_big.jpg)



![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/025_big.jpg)


![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/019_big.jpg)


Don't forget to stain the back of the belt.
Otherwise you would see the stain overflow.

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/021_big.jpg)

# Belt buckle

The cow strip is very strong, therefore difficult to bent.
To attach the buckle, I took sheep leather, which is softer.
I tanned it with the antic finish, and fixed the buckle in.



![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/023_big.jpg)
![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/024_big.jpg)

Next, I just have to drill two lines in each piece of leather, and to stitch them together.

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/030_big.jpg)

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/032_big.jpg)

![](/assets/images/ceinture_forest/033_big.jpg)

You can see that there is one external stitch.
Because we put on and off the belt, the leather tends to grip the clothes.
With this point, it prevents the leather from moving.

![](/images/ceinture_forest/034_big.jpg)