I decided to get my wife a Kindle 2 for her birthday. I was then browsing around various Kindle sites and stubbled upon
this thread about converting a beautiful Italian leather address book to a Kindle cover. I thought it would be really nice to make her a cover myself. It has been years since I have worked with leather. Turns out I need to learn a lot more and practice. I wanted to have a quote embossed on the front cover, in the leather, but that was not possible given the time constraints I was under. I have since ordered a real book about working with leather to increase my skills.
I though I'd post some pictures here so people can see what I was able to do. I went to my local arts and crafts store and picked up some 1/32" plywood, some foam, leather, and some felt. I wrapped the leather around a sheet of the plywood. Took another sheet of plywood and put foam over it, then covered that with felt. Then put those two pieces together, to form one half of the "book".
I really liked the hinge or attachment that Amazon uses in their case, so I removed that from the Amazon case to use in mine. (About this same time I ordered a used Amazon case at Amazon, as a backup incase my custom cover did not turn out.)
In the end, I don't think it turned out too bad for my first attempt. I have not done arts-n-crafts in many many years. This is the first Kindle in our family and I am now finding a good used one for myself. I plan to make a custom cover for myself, only this time I will have all the time I want and hopefully more knowledge about working with leather.
Please excuse the poor picture quality, I was lazy and took them in poor light with my phone.