Step-by-step marbled leather mouse mat project

This fun project will help you to customise your home office accessories in 5 easy steps… PLUS you can win a copy of Make Yourself At Home in my giveaway – enter here…This beautiful book by author of The 52 Lists Project Moorea Seal is packed full of ideas to design and customise your home. From thrifty step-by-step DIY projects to lists of ways to improve your life (the escaping technology list is one of my faves!) there’s something to suit everyone’s life, taste and budget.

MARBLED DESK MAT MATERIALS AND TOOLS

• 1 (12-by-12-inch) piece thick leather, faux leather (avoid leather with a lot of texture or any embossing; smooth leather tends to work better here), or upholstery vinyl.
• Self-healing mat
• Large bowl the same size
you want your mouse pad
to be (smaller than 12 inches in diameter)
• Marker
• X-Acto knife or scissors
• Plastic tub (wide enough to t your cut piece of leather)
• Water
• 2 spray paint colours (I used navy blue and copper)
• Toothpick

HOW TO MAKE A MARBLED MOUSE MAT

1. Lay the leather piece upside down on a self-healing mat. Place the bowl on top of the leather and, using a marker, mark the shape of the circle on the leather. If you are able to cut the leather with scissors, cut out the circle shape. If it is too tough to cut with scissors, hold the bowl on the leather as an edge guide and use an X-Acto knife to cut out the shape.
2. Fill your plastic tub with 2 to 3 inches of water.
3. Spray your two spray-paint colours directly into the water to create a marbled effect. The movement of the water creates swirls of spray-paint colour. Use a toothpick to swirl the colours around more if you want more movement in your marbled design to transfer to the leather.
4. Now gently place the leather top side down into the tub and pull back up as soon as possible. The marbled spray paint will transfer as soon as it touches the leather!
5. Repeat this as many times as needed to cover the entire surface of the leather in marbled paint. The spray paint may be a bit lumpy in some spots at first, but once you let it dry, you can press those areas down with a heavy book and they will lie flat.
6. Let dry for 3 hours. Then add it to your desktop and start working in style! 

How easy is that project? I can see myself wanting to marble everything from now on, haha!

Make Yourself At Home by Moorea Seal isn’t just about fun and crafty projects; there’s also advice on finding your own style, how to feel more at home in your space and plenty of motivational quotes. It’s un-put-downable!For your chance to win a copy of this inspirational book, simply enter my giveaway below. There are plenty of ways to gain entries via the Rafflecopter widget and one lucky winner will be chosen at random when the competition ends. Best of luck to you all – enter right here:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Giveaway open to UK residents only. Competition runs from 26th February – 11th March 2018. 1 Winner will be chosen at random from all the entries via Rafflecopter and the winner will be contacted via email to arrange delivery of their book.

Make Yourself at Home by Moorea Seal, published by Sasquatch (£19.99, available from www.thegmcgroup.com) Photography by Marissa Maharaj, reproduced with permission fro the publisher.