Making 220 Custom Leather Card Holders: Korean Tourism Organization Collaboration Process
- De bloo studio
- Sep 2, 2025
- 2 min read
220 hand-made orders…we made it.
The Korean Tourism Organization ordered a big amount of hand-made card holders, 220 of them, to be exact. It was no easy feat, but we managed to fulfill all the orders and they all turned out so beautiful! If you want to know how we did it, follow along for this journey of leather crafting.
Since everything here is hand-made, time is of the essence as much as quality. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty part, but we essentially worked in big batches to help streamline the process. We cut the leather in big batches, skived, stuck them all together with glue, stamped the Korean Tourism Organization logo in the back, trimmed the edges, and punched holes for the hand-stitch. That was a lot of steps, but team work makes the dream work.
Here’s where the innovation came in – Punching holes requires a lot of strength to use the hammer and pull the punching tool out of the thick pieces of leather. 220 pieces of that and our arms would fall off! Our lead artisan had the bright idea to create a make-shift holder with a couple of C-clamps that can keep the leather piece in place so we can save our strength while pulling the punching tool. That was such a huge help in the long run!
Next is stitching, 1-2 people started and ended the process with double stitches, while the other 2 people did the saddle stitch on the card holders. In hindsight, it was a good call. Once the pesky starting double stitch was done, the rest of stitching was a breeze.
Then, after sanding the edge of the leather to prep for edge painting, we hand-painted all the pieces with a squeeze bottle in batches of color. There was a lot of trial and error, but we found that 2-3 coats of paint would achieve the best result with no visible concaved lines. After that, the next step was ironing the paint To get that nice rounded edge, sanding to make sure that the coating looks nice and smooth, and painting another thin layer with a sponge to give it a shiny finish.
Lastly, we packaged them into neat black boxes with the logo stamped in silver and…220 luxurious hand-made leather card holders were ready as VIP gifts!
Phew, it was a 1 month long journey, but it was well worth it to make the best quality leather goods! We thank the Korean Tourism Organization for choosing De Bloo Studio!
Contact De Bloo Studio for leather craft classes, consultations, order a bag, or book a tailored design course
Date: Aug 26th 2025
Location: De Bloo Studio 4 Sukhumvit 29 Alley, Khlong Toey Nuea, Wattana, Bangkok
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