Sunday, January 3, 2016

Tutorial: Super Easy Earrings to Match Your Outfit

I think we all agree that part of the fun of clay is the ability to whip up jewelry to match any outfit. Here's an easy way to make half-moon curved dangly earrings. 



Mix up an assortment of colors roughly like the colors in the garment you want to match.

Roll each color on the 3 setting (on my pasta machine, 1 is the thickest) and
tear into rough edged strips. Work with the strips on a small smooth tile so you can easily
move it around to roll it, and hold it up next to your garment as you work.
Roll the layers with the acrylic rod to flatten the them. It's important to roll along
the length of the strips and start in the center and work out to the center. Otherwise you
may just worsen gaps between the colors and not end up with a smooth surface.
I needed to muddy the colors up a bit and work some sparkle in, so I added a thin layer of metallic clay to the back and blended some more with the gold on the inside.
Fold the clay in half with the fold on the short edge of the stripes.
Run it through the pasta machine several times to blend the colors for a softer effect.
I should have used the magnet on the roller trick to keep the clay from getting too wide.
But I didn't, so instead...
...I ripped off the blue and purple from the ends and put them back into the center.
I was planning on big earrings, but not that big! I needed to make sure all the colors stayed within a 2-2.5" area.
I checked the colors against my top every so often to see how my blend looked.
I ended up liking the back side of the clay so I flipped it over.
I waited to the end of my blending to add a strip of black so it wouldn't overtake the other colors.

When I was happy with my colors, I backed the sheet with a layer of black
and rolled it lightly to make sure the layers adhered to each other.

I determined where I wanted the colors to hit inside the circle, making sure to get
a little bit of purple and green because they are prominent colors in the shirt I was matching.

I laid the circle on a curved surface to cure.
This is the bottom of a soda can that the ever-helpful Jan Montarsi gave to me.

Cut the circle in half. (I used my blade while the clay was on the curved form.)
I used the point of a bamboo skewer to create the holes. I gently poked it in and then
wiggled it in a tiny circular pattern until the hole was the size I wanted.

I cured the clay, sanded the finished pieces, and buffed them.
I made earwires out of two head pins and voila, earrings to wear out to a lunch with friends.

And here's what they look like on!







7 comments:

  1. Great tutorial, thanks for explaining your use of color and how you muted them, made changes along the way and the tip about adding black at the end. I may not make these earrings but the information and process is so valuable to me! They look perfect with your top...very pretty!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Happy New Year! Thanks for this nice, simple tute. Showing the addition of the gold metallic and the black stripe was very helpful. The earrings look wonderful with your top. Cute model.

    ReplyDelete
  3. So nice! Thank you for sharing!
    And what if you cut in the other direction? Will the earrings be striped vertically? :-)
    LDS BEADS

    ReplyDelete
  4. So nice! Thank you for sharing!
    And what if you cut in the other direction? Will the earrings be striped vertically? :-)
    LDS BEADS

    ReplyDelete
  5. LDS, yes they would be striped vertically if you cut the other direction, but they won't have all the colors unless you plan your stripes to be symmetrical. To make the earrings mirror-image symmetrical, put one color in the center, and add strips in the same order to each side. Cut in half at the center color strip.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Cool !!! With pleasure I will try!
    My daughter liked the beads from polymer clay that makes her dad :)
    Since she was only two years I have done for her clip on earrings. She loved it!
    On photo are materials from which they are made and the final result :)
    Photo: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1103847362988191&set=a.363992266973708.82973.100000888142412&type=3&theater

    ReplyDelete

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