For my second leather project on the Glowforge, I decided to make a passport holder with credit card slots and an additional large pocket for storing plane tickets (for the handful of us who prefer paper boarding passes) and other receipts. As an avid traveler, I always carry my passport on me when I travel internationally. Why not make a multi-functional traveler’s case for my passport?
To start this project, I designed it in an architecture program that has similar functions to AutoCAD called Revit and drew the entire template to scale. Each piece was drawn separately and layered over the ones that it would be paired with during the hand stitching process. Designing the passport holder took about 30 minutes from scratch.
Once the templates were ready, I imported them to Adobe Illustrator and separated the different cutting/etching settings to different colors and layers. This is also one of my first projects where I etched a large area of the leather with a simple text graphic. Then, I sent the file to my Glowforge, cleaned the pieces when they came out, and stitched them together. If you’re interested in a more thorough breakdown of this, please read this post about my first leather project on the Glowforge.
Here’s how my first prototype for the leather passport holder came out. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below!
