How to Make Your Own Leather Clogs at Home

Can you actually make your own clogs? It's one of the questions I get asked more than almost any other. Yes, you can. Leather uppers, a solid wooden sole, the kind of clogs you'd happily buy from an independent shop in one of those brilliant little shopping districts. And it takes far less time than you'd think — a morning, maybe an afternoon, not a fortnight of evenings.

This is exactly how to make your own leather clogs at home, laid out the way I'd talk you through it if I were teaching you face to face: what you'll need, the order to do it in, and where beginners usually trip up.

What You'll Need

photo @hisydgraham

You don't need a workshop full of specialist kit for this. Just a few key tools and some items you'll probably already have in a drawer somewhere.

Materials:

• Full-grain, vegetable-tanned Italian leather, about 1.2mm to 2mm thick or 3 to 5oz weight for the upper and strap (must be thick yet supple to mould comfortably round your feet)
• A solid wooden clog sole, sized to your foot
• Brass tacks or small upholstery nails
• Two buckles for adjusting your ankle strap
• Needle and thread for sewing on the buckle
• A leather or contact adhesive

Tools:

• A hammer — the one you use for putting up pictures is great
• An awl (don't skip this one — it's what helps make the tacks nice and straight)
• A sharp craft knife or leatherworkers knife and a cutting mat
• A leather hole punch and slot hole punch for the buckles
• Needle and thick leatherworkers thread
• A lighter or matches, for sealing the ends of the thread (if you're using synthetic thread)

Made by you, with proper materials, with tools you probably already own.

Choose Your Leather and Your Shape

This is the fun bit, and also the bit people overthink. Vegetable-tanned, full-grain Italian leather is structurally strong and only gets better with wear — it softens, it patinas, it starts to look like it's actually yours rather than something off a shelf. You can play around with colour and combine shades to create a colour-block shoe, or make an impact with a solid block of the same shade.

You can then choose a toe shape (peep-toe, crossover or fisherman) and an ankle strap style before you cut anything — decide once, then commit, rather than second-guessing halfway through.

Make a Paper Pattern

Once you've decided on the shape of your uppers, make a paper pattern. You can do this without a shoe-making last (which is a solid representation of a foot as if it were standing on the footbed or sole — historically made from wood, but now made from plastic). Creating patterns for open-toed sandals without a shoe last is much easier than closed-toe uppers. You are effectively wrapping a flat piece of leather around a very complex curved (convex and concave) shape — your foot! — and trying to do so without getting any folds or pleats. When the flat piece of leather is separated into strips, as is the case when making open-toed sandals, it becomes easier to wrap these strips round the shaped foot.

One easy way for a beginner to create a sandal pattern is to stand your foot on the wooden clog sole and tape your foot to the sole with masking tape. Then you can draw whatever shape you'd like your toe pieces and ankle strap to be. Carefully draw round the ridge of the clog sole where your leather will attach — this is the part of the masking tape you'll cut. Carefully take the masking tape off and lay it out flat on your cutting mat. Then you can cut out the toe and ankle shapes before transferring these shapes to a fresh piece of paper. Mark the tack holes (where the leather will be fixed to the wooden sole) along the edges of these pieces. Also mark where the buckle will attach and the holes for adjusting the ankle strap.

Cut Your Pieces

Working from pre-cut leather (this is what you get with the kit)? Skip straight to marking your tack holes below.

Cutting your own leather: it's always best to work from a paper pattern to get your uppers fitting the sole properly and getting your left and right shoe mirrored and even. You can draw round the paper pattern with a washable pen onto the leather before using your craft or leather knife to carefully cut your leather uppers. Scissors will only work on thin leather, and for clog sandals, thin leather isn't strong enough — it'll rip through the tacks under the strain when you walk. Make sure you cut your leather on a cutting mat, and always always make sure your blade is sharp. Sharp blades are the number one reason you'll be able to get a neat finish to your cuts.

Try Your Leather Uppers for Size to Assess Width

Once you've cut the toe pieces, you can wrap them over your foot to see whether they are too wide (if you were accurate with your pattern making, this step might not be necessary, but it's always good to check before you glue the leather to the wood). Bear in mind that leather will stretch with wear so you want the pieces to fit snugly.

Mark and Punch Your Tack Holes

This is the step beginners are most tempted to do quickly, and the one that makes the biggest difference to how the finished pair looks. Taking your time to make sure the tack guides are spaced out evenly and accurately will mean that you'll have the best chance of hammering in the tacks so that they sit in a neat line and not all higgledy piggledy. Use a round awl to mark through the paper pattern onto your leather. Of course, it's essential that you work out the spacing of the tacks beforehand and then mark the dots onto your paper pattern.

Punch Out the Buckle Holes

Using a leather hole punch (individual hammer-in punches or a rotary hole punch are great), punch out the holes for adjusting the ankle strap and use a slot hole punch for the prong of the buckle to go through.

Attach Your Buckle

Fit your buckle through the slot you made on the ankle piece. You can use either a rivet or needle and thread to secure the buckle onto the leather. If using a rivet, you'll need a rivet-setting tool, or use a screw-in rivet (a Chicago screw). If using needle and thread, make sure you melt down the knot with your lighter or matches to seal it (this will only work with synthetic thread, not linen or cotton).

Glue the Leather to the Sole

Gluing the leather to the wooden sole will make it much easier to hammer in the tacks later. Most wooden clog soles have a 1cm or so ridge running along the side of the shoe - this is where to attach your leather uppers.  Remember that you will have had to account for this extra 1cm either side of your toe and ankle patterns. Apply a thin layer of contact or leather cement to the edges of the toe and ankle pieces, and also to the sections of the wooden sole where your uppers will attach. Wait till the glue is dry to the touch before pressing both together and holding firmly in place to let them bond.

photo @hisydgraham

Hammer in the Tacks

Before hammering in the tacks, get your round awl, and at each tack dot you made on the leather, drive the awl through the leather and into the wood. Make sure you angle your awl down to the base of the sole so that it doesn't risk coming up through the footbed. Making a 'home' for the tack will make it far easier to hammer in straight. Then get a tack and carefully hammer it into the wooden sole, checking you are driving it in nice and straight. Continue round the sole, hammering in each tack.

Now, Wear Them!

Clogs are incredibly comfy, and the natural platform shape of the footbed is great for people who don't like wearing high heels but want shoes that feel a little special.

photo @hisydgraham

A Few Things That Trip People Up

Nothing here is difficult, exactly, but there are a handful of small decisions that make a bigger difference than you'd expect.

• Measure generously, not snugly. It's always easier to trim leather down, but if you make the patterns and cut the leather too narrow, there's nothing you can do apart from start again with a new piece of leather. Also, allow for the overlap needed in the width for the leather to attach to the wooden sole.
• Always use fresh tacks. Old or reused nails bend and blunt, and a bent tack going into leather is how you end up with a split you didn't need.
• Don't cut with a blunt knife — you'll end up with a raggedy cut, and it'll look handmade.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can you really make your own leather clogs at home?

Yes — with the right leather, a wooden sole and a handful of basic tools, this is a genuinely achievable weekend project, not just a nice idea. No cobbler, no sewing machine, no workshop required.

What leather is best for making clogs?

Full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather. It's thick enough to hold its shape, and structurally strong enough that the tacks won't rip through it. It softens and develops a patina with wear rather than cracking or peeling the way a lower-grade or bonded leather will.

Do handmade leather clogs need breaking in?

A little, yes, same as any leather shoe. Give them short wears over the first week rather than a full day straight off, and the leather will mould to your foot. You'll also need to give your feet and muscles a little time to adjust to walking on the solid wooden sole.

What tools do I need to make clogs?

A hammer, an awl, a sharp craft knife, a leather hole punch and cutting mat, a lighter or matches. Nothing specialist, and most of it you might already have.

How Long Does It Take?

Realistically, making your own clogs from scratch takes five to eight hours, start to finish — in one sitting if you've got a free day, or spread across a few shorter sessions if that suits your week better. That's the timing I've built this guide around, and it holds whether it's your first pair or your fifth.

If you're making clogs with my Clog Making Kit instead, the pattern cutting, leather and tool sourcing have already been done for you, so it'll only take you around three to five hours.

Ready to Make Your Own?

The Clog Making Kit takes care of the sourcing and the guesswork for you — leather already cut to size, a wooden sole in your size, and every tack, tool and instruction included. It goes out in small batches rather than sitting on a shelf all year, and the next one opens early 2027. Pop your name down on the Clog Making Kit page and I'll let you know the moment it's back.

Not ready to wait that long? Have a look at the DIY Leather Bag Kits collection instead — same leather, same made-by-you idea, ready to go now. And if bags are more your thing generally, I've written the same kind of step-by-step guide for how to make a leather bag.

About the maker

Esther has spent 15+ years in the leather industry — as a sample maker, running her own leather bag brand stocked in Japan and the UK, and now teaching leather craft to over 1,000 students through Leather Needle Thread.