My husband and I found a beautiful chest covered in leather unfortunately the budget just willnot cover it at this point. I do have an old blanket chest and I thought I might try to repurpose this blanket chest to serve the same function. Does anyone have suggestions on how to cover the sides of the box with leather?
You could maybe do a faux-leather look... I recently made some napking rings that -inadvertently -ended up looking like they were made of leather! I used Mod Podge, and brown tissue paper, and decoupaged it on to my rings (which were made of sections of cardboard tubes) and as they dried, the brown, crinkled tissue paper looked like shiny beautiful leather. In order to complete the look, I used silver colored embossing ink / powder and a heat gun to make round dots around the rings, which look kind of like rivets.
I'd say on a trunk or chest, you might use something more durable than tissue paper, like brown butcher paper, which you could crinkle and distress a bit first, and then use some kind of epoxy or paste to attach it, and then varnish the outside. (I'd probably ask at a craft store or home-supply store about what kinds of varnish or glues to use.)
I haven't really worked with leather, but if you want to use real leather, you probably have to attach it with leather-tacks hammered in evenly.
