Paperclay Earrings and Necklace

By Amanda Marks

I love dangle earrings and I have made jewelry in the past but for me I have to be in the mood to do it.  I decided I really wanted to make a set of earrings and a matching necklace.  My original idea was to just to make pendants and chose my own beads.  The more I thought about the pendants and started making everything the more I realized that I needed to experiment once again and make my own beads. 

I made the pendant by rolling out the Paperclay with my fondant roller for a uniformed thickness.  Taking my round Clay 1/2” cutter to cut out four pieces for the earrings.  Using my 1” circle cutter, I cut out two pieces for the necklace pendant.  I took a head pin with a loop and placed it in the center of the pendant, brushing the pendant with water I placed the other pendant piece on top of the head pin.  Using a sculpting tool I smoothed the edges together to complete each pendant.

Taking a toothpick I drew a butterfly directly into the clay, using a sculpting tool and water I was able to refine the butterfly image.  I did this for the remain two pendants.  I let the pendants dry for 24 hours.

  I laid everything out and then realized I needed more Paperclay beads. 
I do not have a bead roller so I rolled my beads by hand (oh the horror – I know).  I estimated the clay and rolled them out into a ball I took a metal darning needle and made my holes for stringing.  Thinking my beads needed a little more bling I wanted to emboss them.  I took a small take out container with a lid and added my gold embossing powder, beads and treated it like Shake – N – Bake.  I added the beads to the metal darning needle and heated the embossing powder.  Warning the needle does get really hot during this period.  I also want to state the clay was still wet during this process it helped the embossing powder to the beads and gives a really neat effect to have the bead dry on the needle with the heat gun.  After the beads were embossed I used the homemade alcohol inks to color the beads.  I colored the pendants with my homemade alcohol inks to match the glass blue iridescent seed beads my mom purchased from Noc Bay Trading Company (I grew up right across the street from them).
Once the beads were finished I strung them with beading wire and used the seed beads from Noc Bay.  I did use bead caps on each side of the beads I made, it gave it a more polished look.  I added Liquitex Iridescent Medium to the pendants and used Glossy Accents on the pendants to give it a glass like finish.  Looking at the piece I thought the silver was a little too distracting and decided it need to be muted.  Using my Hot Aqua Bic Mark-It Fine Point Pen, I colored the bead caps and all the exposed silver.

 

I am extremely pleased with how my necklace turned out.  My mom keeps telling me how much she wants it.  I am not sure if I can part with this one. 

If you are curious on what I did for Project One click here.

**Please note I have been supplied Creative Paperclay for this project as part of their Design Team.  All other items I purchased or had previously owned.