Saturday, July 30, 2011

Simple Delight Earrings

I've been wanting to make jewelry for a while and finally got around to it for this project. I have never made earrings before. In fact, the only jewelry I have ever made was a necklace with clay beads at a local art museum. I was eight years old, I picked out the prettiest beads they had...but they were also the heaviest beads! I swear that necklace weighed five pounds! Anywho, I digress. So here's my tutorial on how to make your very own, very simple earrings with Delight, Paperclay's light and fluffy air dry modeling compound product!

What You Need
Delight
Jewelry Fundamentals' Fancy Earring Findings & Fancy Headpin Kit (Available at Jo-Ann's)
Nail Polish
Round Nose Pliers
Wire Cutter
Glass Beads
Ruler or measuring area on craft mat
Water for sculpting





What To Do
1. Take a small amount of Delight, roll it around a bit to soften it, and then roll out a five inch long snake.

2. Line the snake up with a ruler or the measuring area on your craft mat. With a head pin or a butter knife, divide the snake into equal 1/2 inch pieces.

 

3. Pick up a section of your divided snake and shape it a bit. I decided to go with a Chicklet type of tape for my very simple earrings.

 

4. Use a little water to keep the Delight modeling clay moist. This stuff is delicate and it dries really quick! Once you have the desired shape, run a head-pin through the bead. Twirl the bead around head-pin a bit and then stick it into a styrofoam ball for drying.

 

5. Now this was incredible! I thought my little Chicklet earrings would need at least 2-3 hours to fully dry. Not so much! In less than an hour, these beads were ready to be painted!

6. I have this nail polish which I love and thought it would look great on a pair of earrings!
Paint your beads and allow to dry completely.

 

7. Now it's time to put together your earrings! I placed a silver glass bead on the head-pins first, followed by one bead, followed by another silver glass bead.

8. Next, I followed the instructions on the Jewelry Fundamentals package which included twisting the head-pin around the fish-hook with the round nose pliers.

9. Cut the excess wire off and voila! You have your very own, handmade, simple dangling earrings! And you can match your nails to them since they were painted with nail polish!!!

 

Hope you enjoyed this tutorial! I sure did!!!

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