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Printed Leather

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Printed Leather

Custom Leather Fabric Printing To Order

Save 22% from $69.00 Was $89.00

Custom printed leather is perfect for making your own personalised leather bags, wallets and other unique...

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    Ships in 4 - 5 days

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    Delivery $15.50

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    Handmade

Leather Printing Features

  • Several types of leather
  • High definition print
  • Print directly into the leather
  • Perfect for DIY accessories
  • Add your photos and designs
  • No minimum order

Digital printing on leather gives you the ultimate opportunity to make your own homemade purses, wallets or printed leather bags, printed with a design that reflects your style.

We only source the best quality leathers that are soft to touch and great to work with. Over time, you'll notice your custom leather fabric gifts develop a natural patina that simply adds to the charm. With a choice of leathers, (both smooth and debossed), our white base colour makes for a beautiful, accurate print.
  • 100% real leather
  • High definition full-colour print
  • Print your patterns, illustrations, photos
  • Different size choices dependant on leather
  • Develops authentic patina over time
  • Perfect for making personalised leather gifts
  • Keeps original handle, doesn't stiffen
  • Anti-wrinkle, anti-creasing dependent on leather
  • Durable, rub-proof (tested)
  • Ink as strong as the leather
  • Expertly printed and made to order

Range of Real Leathers

Browse our range of real leathers

  • Soft White Nappa Texture 0.7-0.9mm

    Soft White Nappa Texture 0.7-0.9mm

    • Max Print:
      0.5m
    • Roll Width:
      0.52m

    A soft pliable nappa full grain leather, with stamped "Bison" grain. 0.7-0.9mm thickness. White base colour.

  • Soft White Nappa Smooth 1.4mm

    Soft White Nappa Smooth 1.4mm

    • Max Print:
      0.5m
    • Roll Width:
      0.52m

    A soft pliable nappa full grain leather, with a flat face. 1.4mm thickness approx. White base colour.

  • Double butt 2.4-2.6mm

    Double butt 2.4-2.6mm

    • Max Print:
      1.5m
    • Roll Width:
      1.52m

    Full grain double butt, thick leather, ideal for belts, handles and leather craft. White base colour.

Care instructions

Always test an offcut or sample prior to working the leather with tools, adhesives or heat. To ensure the leather print on your product is as durable as possible, we’ve worked hard refining our printing process and craftsmanship. As leather is a natural material you may notice small differences in surface and texture, as well as wrinkles, which is common to products made from natural leather. All leathers age naturally according to the usage, and this can cause the print to wrinkle or fade slightly over time. It is possible the base colour may show through the leather as it ages with wear. When not in use we recommend storing your product in a protective dust bag or box to keep your product looking its best. Avoid prolonged exposure to extreme heat, sunlight, water, and chemical cleaners to maintain a bright and long-lasting print. Avoid contact with light coloured fabrics or upholstery as the colour may transfer. Whilst a light rain shower is unlikely to harm, we recommend protecting from rain. Should your product get wet, allow to dry naturally away from direct heat. To clean surface wipe only with a damp lint free cotton cloth.

  • Wipe with a lint free cloth
  • Do Not Wash
  • Avoid high temperatures
  • Avoid direct sunlight
  • Avoid chemical cleaners
  • Avoid rain and water
strong fabric

Martindale tested for strength

Printing Photos On Leather

The leather has a white base colour which gives wonderfully finished custom leather fabric. Colours are true to the original: bold, bright and vivid. Fine details show up exceptionally, up to 2pt, making leather printing perfect for highly detailed prints. It can be folded, bent and stretched with little to no creasing or wrinkling, dependant on the type of leather, so will stay smooth. We use the latest leather printing technology to print your photos onto the 100% real custom leather fabric, which we do directly onto both the flat and textured options. This makes the inks penetrate deep into the fibres and are undisturbed by the surface texture.

The Nappa leather is sourced via Italian tanneries for printing and finishing in our own in-house atelier studio. This work is by hand and to order. As a full grain, bovine-calf leather, it is graded to the highest level for print and manufacturing quality.

What Can I Make With My Own Printed Leather?

You can make your own personalised leather bag to match your individual style. There are so many lookalike handbags on the market, but here you can be in control of the pattern, colours and shape of your bag. This will make a unique printed leather gift that can be used time and time again and will only get better with age.

We've also seen customers use digital leather printing to restore accessories like wallets and purses. When you have the base interior of your purse, you can stitch your printed leather to it and turn it into a brand new fashion item.

Upholstering furniture is another creative use for printing on custom leather fabric, as you can trim chairs with your custom leather fabric, finished with metal studs. This is a classic and traditional aesthetic that'll transform your home decor.


Important: Not suitable for children's toys or pet products, due to the risk of ink being forcefully removed and ingested.

Digital Printing On Leather

We only source the best quality leather to make your customised prints, leaving the reverse unfinished for an authentic look and feel. To create such bold, vibrant prints, we transfer your picture to leather using digital leather printing. This ensures the ink won't peel away or scratch off, creating a long-lasting leather photo. Direct digital printing on leather ensures your custom image will be as strong as the leather itself, for a truly everlasting personalised item.

Please note: Leather printing is a bespoke process, so the exact size of your piece of custom leather fabric can be slightly smaller than the stated dimensions. This will be no more than a maximum of 4mm.

Print Guideline

  • DPI-Print Guideline Icon

    What's the best resolution to print in?

    We print at 200dpi, which is a good combination of quality and file weight. Ideally, your image should be scaled to 100% at 200dpi; this means that no resizing of your file occurs, preventing any interpolation. Our design interface will have a quality marker next to the design that you have uploaded, this will change colour using a traffic light system and display a message. The message will let you know if the resolution is too low or if you have a good quality image. 

  • scaling-Print Guideline Icon

    How will my image scale?

    When you upload your design our system will automatically scale it to fit your chosen fabric dimensions. In the ‘Product Options’ tab, the displayed dimensions under ‘Print Size’ will show the dimensions of the piece of fabric that you are ordering. For image/design dimensions you need to see the ‘Images & Text Tools’ tab. You can see and edit the dimensions of the image under the quality information next to the thumbnail.

  • RGB-CMYK Print Guideline Icon

    Which colour model should I choose? RGB or CMYK?

    We advise providing images in the RGB colour space. Specifically using the sRGB image profile, to achieve best colour results. What does this mean? In your editing software choose RGB as the working space, and assign the image profile as sRGB (full name sRGB IEC61966-2.1)

  • Print-Roll Length Fabric Guide Icon

    Maximum dimensions

    For most of our fabrics, there is no limit on the length of the fabric that you can order. We have a preview design window set up to 10m max to visualise the print, but that's not a print limit. If you'd like to order more, increase the quantity (x2 for 20m or x4 for 40m for example) and then you can order as much as you'd like, with a built-in automatic volume discount too. The maximum print width of each fabric can be found on the individual fabric pages or in our design interface.

  • Borders-Print Guideline Icon

    Do I need to incorporate white space within my design if I want a border or some cutting space?

    Yes, that might help you! Always incorporate any extra space or boarders into your purchased fabric size. We trim squarely around fabric samples and fabric prints, leaving approximately 5mm white space. Cutting neatly on the line has an additional fee.

  • crocking-Print Guideline Icon

    What is crocking and why might it occur?

    Crocking, which is fading along the creases, often after washing or heavy use, occurs when you digitally print on natural fabrics - more so when dark or dense colours are used. It can be minimised by using a cool hand wash instead of machine washing as the tumbling of the machine is the main cause of this. To avoid entirely, we would advise using a poly fabric.

  • organics-Print Guideline Icon

    Why do my colours appear lighter on organic fabrics?

    Our organic fabrics do not have any coatings that the non-organic fabrics have. This means the ink absorbs into the fibres, reducing the colour strength slightly (by approx. -40%). For super strong colours we recommend a non-organic natural fabric.

  • Transfer-Print Guideline Icon

    Do you print on fabric a customer supplies?

    Unfortunately not; we like to test meticulously so that we know what gets best results on our fabrics, and our facilities cater perfectly to them. We do however print sublimation paper to order, and if you have access to a heat press you can press your own fabrics easily.

  • Jpeg-Tiff Print Guideline Icon

    Should I save my file as a TIFF or JPEG?

    For multi-coloured or very detailed files we recommend using a tiff format, but they must be flattened. For simple colours and low detail files, a jpeg is fine.

  • Shrinkage-Print Guideline Icon

    What is the situation with material shrinkage?

    Just like many fabric printing processes, there is the potential for shrinkage. Depending on the fabric, please expect and allow between 2-8% shrinkage which you need to plan for in your dimensions. This percentage can vary from print run to print run and between fabrics, so we would advise ordering a little more material than you require for your project. 

  • Print-Both Sides Print Guideline Icon

    Can I print on both sides of the fabric?

    We do not offer to print on both sides of the fabric. A lot of our fabrics are semi-transparent or have some show through and this wouldn't work with double-sided printing. This is not a service that we offer on any of our fabrics.

  • Labels-Print Guideline Icon

    Can I order labels in another fabric? Would you cut them as you do with the normal fabric labels?

    At the moment no, our labels are all printed on the same satin fabric. We may introduce more in the future, but for now, this is the best choice. The labels are all cut the same way. You can order the fabric of your choice and make the labels yourself, but we do not cut different fabric into label format.

  • Eco friendly Printing

    How is your fabric printing eco-friendly?

    With environmental consciousness in mind, our fabrics are all printed using completely water-based inks. This means no chemicals or solvents are used. Our heat fixing procedure fixes the colours and prints, avoiding the downsides of steaming, such as excess or contaminated water returning into the waste system. We have one facility in London where we conduct all the printing, production and fulfilment. Rather than roll the fabrics, or send them in a tube, we fold them before they are sent out to you. This saves over 150 tubes a week, as well as a lot of space on the delivery van. (For delicate fabrics we ensure to package appropriately).

  • colour palette

    Why are there slight colour differences between my orders?

    We work at improving our colour profiles all the time. Though rare it may happen that from one print run to another, and there could be slight colour differences, this is normal and part of the process when we are constantly improving. It is extremely unlikely that there will be a huge difference (like orange instead of red for example). Please bear in mind such colour variations can be intensified from fabric to fabric due to the varying grains and textures of the fabric; natural fabrics tend to have more muted colours than their poly alternatives. This is due to the construction of the materials as well as the print methods that have to be altered slightly for more delicate, natural textiles.




Sizing For Hemming And Shrinkage

Hemming Options ICON

We have a full Cut & Sew service here at Bags of Love, and are able to hem your fabric prints for a small additional charge. We create a small one- or two-fold hem that typically uses 5 to 20mm of material, depending on the thickness of the fabric. So, for example, if you want a finished piece of fabric that measures 100 x 100cm, you will need to order a size of 101.5cm x 101.5cm to allow for the hem (on top of that please also allow for shrinkage of min 2%). The thicker the fabric, the bigger the hem will be. You can choose to have your prints hemmed with either Black or White thread. On our silk and other light woven fabrics, one hemmed edge will be straight (vertically down the roll) and the other will be slightly rippled. The hemming material allowances are as follows and you need to make your print bigger to accommodate the hem:

  • Light Fabrics (20-100gsm): For silks and other light fabrics, we use 6-8mm in the hem (2 fold), so overall width/height will be minus 12-16mm
  • Medium Fabrics (101-200gsm): For medium-weight fabrics that fray, we use 15-20mm in the hem (2 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 35-40mm
  • Stiff/Heavy/No-fray fabrics: we use 15-20mm in the hem (1 fold) so overall width/height will be minus 35-40mm
All of these measurements are approximate and can vary. Including with shrinkage, it can mean a fairly significant difference to ordered dimensions, so please plan your print accordingly. Depending on how open the weave is, our fabric can shrink anywhere from 2% to 8% with the average being 2.5%.
 

How Would you Like the Edge?

We have four finishing options for your fabric order: 
  • As it comes. We cut around your image, leaving a simply scissor cut, perhaps uneven white fabric border. 
  • Hem with thread. We can hem your fabric with a choice of black or white thread. Please allow 1-2 days of additional production time. See below for information on how hemming affects the size of your print. We offer an overlock hem, as well as a folded hem (one or two fold depending on the fabric) however not all fabrics, are suited to both hem types. If you can see both options, it means both are suitable, and you will be able to choose whichever you prefer. 
  • Cut on the line. We will cut neatly on the edge of your design. This means that if you have a border around your design we will cut around that border, if your design takes the whole space of the fabric, then we will neatly cut around the edge of that image. Please be aware, when we cut along the line, we have to cut against the grain of the fabric. This is the standard procedure for fabric cutting. This means that with some fabrics, for example, Georgette and Mulmul, which have a slight wave in them, some fraying will occur. This is unavoidable, as the cut follows the grain of the textile. 
All of our fabrics are cut manually by hand, with the utmost care and attention. If your fabric has a slightly uneven look on the edges or a touch of fraying, this does not indicate a flaw in the textile. It is not always possible to achieve a perfect straight cut with certain fabrics, so please do bear this in mind when it comes to your design. If you have any queries or would like to know about our cutting methods in more detail, please get in touch and we will be more than happy to discuss them with you. 

For further information about our fabrics see our FAQs

Please note: As everything we provide is handmade to order, you may find a slight variance in the sizes. 

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