DIY Leather Luggage Tag

I don’t know about you but I am not a huge leather fan. It just doesn’t scream warm and homey to me, so when I realized the traditional anniversary gift to celebrate three years of marriage was leather I was a little stumped. The one thing that kept popping in my brain was something to do with travel. I love how these leather luggage tags are super simple and yet screams for adventure! It added a nice little touch and helps your bag stand out from the crowd on a crowded airplane flight.

Here’s how you can make your own DIY leather luggage tag.

Supplies

Leather material or old purse

Embroidery floss

Needle

Sharp pointy object like a thumbtack or awl

Cutting utensil like scissors, utility knife, and/or an exacto knife

First, you want to find an old leather purse. Goodwill is a perfect place to check for that. I found one for less than $5 and there were plenty to choose from. If you want to be legit be sure and get one that says 100% genuine leather on the tag.

Start by deconstructing your purse by cutting it apart using a utility knife. Once you have your leather, cut out a luggage tag type of shape using the utility knife. If you don’t have a utility knife you can also use an exacto knife and scissors.

Once you have the luggage tag shape cutout of your leather cut a second tag the same size then cut a rectangle out of the middle of that one for the address label window.

At the top of your tag cut an x to make a spot for you to hang your tag. My purse I found from Goodwill had a thin leather strap that I was able to use to hang the tag. If you don’t have one, cut a thin strip of leather from the material to make yourself a strap. As you can see, I used the wood burning pen to burn the edges where the strap is for a fun look.

Using a pen, rough sketch what you want the front of your tag to say. I did our initials. Once you’re happy with the way it looks you can write it using the wood-burning pen.

Pro Tip: if you use a pen you can erase the marks using water.

Next take a sharp object like an awl (or thumbtack like I did) to poke holes around the outside edge of your luggage tags. Using some embroidery floss whip stitch around the edge for a rustic look. This will help your luggage tags stand out when you go on all those fun vacations together and help hold the tag together better.

To finish off your thread, wrap it through the same hole a few times and then feed it between the two pieces of leather and pull it through like shown in the picture above. This will hold it all in place.

And there you have it! I love how you can write so many different things on the tags: like your names, last name, a phrase from your vows, “traveling together since (your anniversary)”, etc.

Now that you have these personalized leather luggage tags, where do you hope to go with them? We are planning a trip to DisneyWorld and I just can’t wait to use our new luggage tags!