Faux Leather Geometric Lion Wall Hanging

I have recently repainted my bedroom and thought it was time for some new wall decor. My bedroom decor is all heavy wood with African-themed bedding, so I wanted something African for the wall. I recently saw an image of a geometric lion and I knew that was what I wanted to make. I just had to figure out how I could do it. My idea was to try and make up the different colours using fabric and faux leather.

• Scrap fabric or Faux leather
• Plywood for the base
• Paint
• Glue
• Scissors
• Plain paper
• Craft knife

I bought a geometric lion SVG cut file from Etsy with the intention of cutting out the design in leather for my wall hanging For some inspiration on colour choices, I browsed Pinterest and found this similar image above. I loved the effect of the colours they used and this was my inspiration for this project. This messed up my whole idea because I think this design was possibly digitally created. This meant I would not be able to use my Cricut vinyl cutter to make this project. But saying that, I did come up with another way to do it.

There are many designs available on Etsy if you search for layered mandalas or geometric animals. I went with a basic design first because I had no idea if this would work. I chose this geometric lion which I had printed onto A3 paper, anything smaller would become too fiddly.

Next, using an Exacto knife I cut out all the sections that I would be covering in the faux leather. The image above will give you a good idea of which pieces I removed. Try and cut them out accurately because you will be using them as templates. Put the cut out to one side, for now, we will be using them later.

Once all the inside pieces have been removed, I cut around the outside border.

The next step is to cut out the background in faux leather. I chose to use black so it would stand out among the other colours.

I taped the template onto my black faux leather and cut around the outside border only. This will be your base for all the other pieces to be glued onto.

I have a big bag of assorted faux leather scraps that I had leftover from other projects, which I used for this project. You can start by cutting the leather into approximately 1cm strips this does not have to be exact they just need to be fairly straight. I found it quick and easy to do this using an Exacto knife and a craft cutting mat. If you do have a Cricut vinyl cutter you can do this step using your machine. My cutting mats were not very sticky and the leather kept lifting and getting stuck. I do know this works because I used this method when I created my steampunk mannequin.  I used a few different colours.

Next, you can glue the strips of leather onto a sheet of paper. I did use a cheap craft glue at first but found the paper got all soggy and ripped after a while. I ended up using The ultimate crafter glue which is thicker and sticks better too. You will need approximately 3 sheets of A4 paper with leather strips to complete an A3 geometric lion. To make your design more interesting you can mix and match the stripes.

I found it easier to start cutting out the bigger pieces first. It was as simple as putting the temple on the leather strips and cutting around the template. This is also where you can get creative and cut out the templates from different angles.

At this stage, I did not glue them in place. I waited until I had cut all the templates out and I was happy with how the geometric lion looked.

I got so engrossed by this stage I did not take a picture of the next stage. It was just a picture of all the templates in place. Next, I slid the templates off the base ready for glueing.

To make sure I was glueing the templates in the correct position, I used the paper template over the black base as a guide. I found it easier to use a small brush and added the glue making sure to cover all the edges. Then I placed the glued template onto the base.

It is a good idea to lift up the paper template from time to time to make sure you have not accidentally glued it to the base. Repeat this until you have all the pieces glued in place. This step took me about an hour to complete.

I put so much effort into making this geometric lion, I felt it needed a unique frame to finish it off. I used a scrap piece of plywood and cut it to the shape I wanted. My idea was to have a double frame. The first frame will surround the geometric lion then there will be a layer of assorted faux leather and then the second frame.

For the background around the lion, I painted the base with raw senna paint. Next, I used small quantities of orange, red and yellow and blended them together with a dry brush. It was supposed to resemble the African sky, but I did not quite pull it off. You could also use an orange fabric.

To make the frame I used some recycled decking planks. I was given a huge stash of these and liked the idea of using the grooves in the frame. I cut 4 x 1cm pieces from the sides of the decking plank, I liked that they were curved. Next, I cut 4 x 1.5cm of the wood with the grooves in.

The wood was then cut at a 45-degree angle to make my frames. Before I glued the frame together I added some Danish oil to the wood to bring back the natural colour.

I had all intentions of attaching the frame to the plywood with a nail gun, but my wood was too thin for the nails I had. So I had to glue the frame in place and weigh it down with some wood while it dried.

I did not notice until the end that the lion’s eyes looked like he was blind so I added some pupils. And that is my geometric leather lion wall hanging completed. I was a little disappointed with the final picture because I used recycled wood you could see some of the flaws in the wood through the faux leather. I should have filled in the holes and sanded the surface better.

My frame was now ready for the final touch which was to add some leather patches to the gap between the two frames. I cut the patches to size and glued them in place. My unique geometric lion wall hanging was now ready to hang.

The surface of this mannequin was created in the same way by using scraps of faux leather. Tutorial

How to make a novelty doormat. Tutorial. More great DIY projects are available on my website Unique Creations By Anita