How to Make a Cool DIY Sneaker Wallet

Tools and materials:

• Sneakers
• Cardholder wallet template: https://shopone15.com/products/sneaker-cardholder-wallet-template 
• Leather
• Cutter blade
• Leather glue
• Prongs 
• Sewing awl
• Sewing machine
• Leather paint
• Leather paint sealer
• Scissors
• Tape
• Lighter

1. Cut the template 

First, cut out the template for your wallet. 

2. Cut the leather

Then grab some black leather and it's important to note that this leather is 1mm thick so that it's thin enough for a needle to pass through easily.

Tape the template pieces to the leather and cut each section so that it'll be easier to slice them out individually. Then use a cutter blade to cut each piece precisely. 

3. Glue the pocket

To create the pocket, take your large square and place the oddly shaped piece on top of it and then the smallest square on top of that.

Take the oddly shaped pieces and apply glue along the edges only, do not apply any glue to the middle of the piece. Once glued, lay that piece slightly below the top edge of the square

4. Punch holes

When making wallets, hole-punching prongs are used to mark out and create straight and clean stitches. Take the two-piece prong tool to form a straight line as a guide and then use the six-piece prong to hammer in holes along that indent.

5. Thread

Once you have your holes punched, grab a needle and thread along. After that grab a lighter and burn the thread at the end to secure it down.

6. Glue on the third piece

Apply glue to the edges of the smallest piece and glue it on top of the second layer.

7. Cut the sneaker

Now the first half of the wallet is set and it's time to cut up our shoe for the other half. Use the cutter blade to remove the upper part of the sneaker from the sole. Then cut away the toe box panel.

Everything connected to the outside leather needs to be removed so make sure that anything creating extra thickness is stripped away.

8. Cut out the shape

Lay the upper piece of the sneaker flat, then take your front piece of leather and place it where you'd like on the shoe. Tape the square down and cut around the shape with the cutter blade.

Alternatively, you can trace around the piece with a pencil and then cut it out. Repeat this on other areas on the shoe if you want to create multiple wallets.

9. Glue to the leather

Now take your last remaining leather square as well as the sneaker piece that you just cut out and apply glue to attach the two pieces together. This will be the front of the wallet.

10. Join the front and the back

With the front and back complete, now we just have to apply glue to the edges of both.

11. Sew

To join the pieces together you can create holes using a sharp prong and then hand stitch them with a sewing awl, or you can sew a simple stitch with a sewing machine which eliminates the need to punch holes.

12. Paint

The great part about working with all white leather is we can make any color we want with some leather paint.

I made three wallets so I'll be painting them in three different colorways. Lastly, be sure to apply a paint sealer to protect and preserve the paint from scratching and scuffing.

Sneaker wallet

Here are the finished sneaker wallets. They look so unique and so fabulous. I painted mine in a way that they resemble an actual sneaker, but you can go for whichever colors you like.

Not only are these wallets functional and practical, but they have a fun and funky design too - everyone will be asking you where you got yours!

If you give this DIY a go, we'd love to hear about it in the comments below.