Restoring an old wallet has never been easier!

Difficulty Rating: EASY

We've all got old leather items lying around. Wallets, purses, belts, shoes... even watch straps. This guide will show you how to rejuvenate & restore your leather items. We will use an old, worn wallet We'll be changing the colour of a black leather wallet to orange and grey.

Everything we did in this guide was done using our own leather care & repair products.

Brief breakdown:

Preparation is key here. If you want a quality finished product, you must spend the most time preparing the items that you will be working on. After this, we'll go through the colouring process. Then finally, sealing the colour in and protecting the leather to extend it's life.
* Due to the natural heavy use that wallets see daily. I wouldn't advise you to totally change the colour for a day to day wallet.

Step 1

• Put on your gloves!
• You will need to use the Leather Prep to take off as much of the original colour as possible. You do this by applying the Leather Prep to a Red Emery pad and scrubbing in all directions. Both along and against the grain of the leather. you can conserve some of the leather prep by folding the red emery pads in half with a cloth or piece of fabric in the middle. Repeat this process until most of the colour has come away.

• Next, you want to give your wallet a good clean with the Alcohol Cleaner provided. This will remove any dirt and give the wallet a good surface to start work on.
• Once cleaned thoroughly, you will start to sand the wallet.
• Using a fine paper such as 1200 to get rid of any imperfections left on the wallet.
• After sanding, use a tack cloth to remove any bits of dirt left from sanding.
• At this stage, you can assess the wallet and repeat the above steps: Prepping > cleaning > lightly sanding > tack cloth.
It is important to prep' the wallet correctly in order to achieve the best possible results.

Step 2

• When you are happy with the prepping stage, you may use a hair dryer to remove any dampness from the leather.
• Once totally dry, decide on your design. Mask off any areas that you don't want to colour at this stage.
• When satisfied: start applying the leather dye to the sponges provided. You will need to do a few coats, so please don't apply LOTS of dye. Thinner layers are better than 1 thick one.
• You can apply the first few layers of leather dye by dabbing, spreading or rubbing. I prefer a "dabbing" process. This keeps the colour even and also helps build a natural leather look.
Alternatively, if you have the tools available - using an airbrush/airgun will also create a great finish. • In between layers, you can speed up the drying process by using a hair dryer. Do not poke the leather dye at this point. You can often tell if the dye is still damp if it has a shiny look to it.
• Repeat this colouring process, building up the thing layers until you have a solid, unformed look across the whole area.

• For our wallet, we added an orange trim. We applied this colour by using a small paint brush. Applying thin layers, leaving us with a great finish.
• Repeat this colouring process for the inside of the wallet.

Step 3

• This is the "locking in the colour stage". Using a personal choice of lacquers, Gloss, Matt or Satin. Apply the Lacquer in the same way as the colour.
• Again, speed up the drying process with a hair dryer.
• Finally, once the leather dye has been sealed using the lacquer, we can protect the leather to help extend it's life and prevent stains or dirt. Apply the Leather Protection Cream.