yes you can!!
you dont really need a skiving knife at this point any knife will skive, you can use a lot of different household item to burnish also, denim, canvas, glass, come to mind also you can use a regular cutting board from the kitchen to replace the mats
If you plan on staying in the craft buy all those things! if you don't just search your home for good equivalents.
finishes can be as easy as nfo and a good clear shoe polish, mink oil water proofing is what i use. The natural color will darken with age and amount of sunlight it gets, a lot of folks just use the nfo then lay it out in the sun to darken naturally.