Valar Morghulis Bracelet: Geekery in Jewelry

I'm a big fan of George R. R. Martin's Game of Thrones series, and especially of the character Arya Stark. I'm going to try and not include any spoilers for those of you who haven't read the books, so let's just say that this phrase is very cool, a sort of memento mori in world, and the coin is a reference to part of that as well.

Making it:
I got some nice soft black leather from Ornamentea, about 36", and attached the coin closure to the end using a bone colored bead and some thread. I looped the leather through the hole in the coin, sewed the bead to the leather, then put one end back through the hole and fastened the leather back together on the other side with black thread. For the other end, I just made a loop and sewed it with black thread, wrapping it around several times before tying it off.


The words were the most difficult part. I wanted the coin and the words and I tried lots of different methods to get the words into the project, and finally I decided to stamp the words using my metal alphabet (I also stamped a copper piece, which I'll show you later).


In the end, I'm very happy with the piece. I'm curious to see how well the leather will continue to hold up after being stamped so heavily. I put the phrase on repeatedly around the leather, so however you wrap it around your wrist, you can see them.


Here's what I've learned with this project:
- Use serious needles when working with leather, I destroyed two needles
- Wintergreen transfers do not work on metal (my initial idea was to transfer "Valar Morghulis" onto a brass oxidized coin-like piece using wintergreen - it did nothing!)