Earrings From Polymer Clay, Nailpolish and Glass Beads

There was a period in time that is reffered to as "the nineties". Crazy times. Kids breaking their own arms with slapbracelets, walkytalkys, slinkies.. and also you made your own jewelry with polymerclay or rubberfoam. In Neoncolours preferably. That was a thing... It wasn't pretty, but then a lot of things that are fashionable aren't pretty.

Still, what goes around comes around. And why not!

I've been picking up some sculpting lately and it's still as much fun as it was back then! Also it's not that hard and not even that expensive.

What more reason do you need?

None.

So here's what you do need.

- some Polymer Clay

- Glass beads (Glass needs high temperatures to melt. Polymer clay usually doesn't, so it's save to bake glass. Don't be tempted to use plastic beads though!)

- Moziac sized pieces of mirror

- For the tassels: sewing-thread

- Nailpolish

- Rings and hooks

- Tweezers

- a Small snacksized oven is ideal!

The base of this design is a diamond-shape.

Pierce the top with a needle, make sure the hole is big enough for the ring.

Take your piece of mirror and push it into the clay. Decorate it with strings of clay and glass beads. The strings of clay also keep the mirror and beads in place.

If you want to add the tassels or e.g. strings of beads, pierce the bottom.

If the previous step asks to much of your fine motor skills, here's something else yo can try.

Sculpt a shape and just push in a lot of beads. We are going to secure them later on so if there's a loose one here and there, no worries.

Gather up all your creCLAYthions and bake.

As you can see I also tried some faux stones :)

https://www.instructables.com/id/Faux-stone-bracele...

Allow your baked goods to cool and inspect them.

This part has always made me very happy! Seeing all those fresh projects...

But we're not finished just yet.

As you can see, the white clay turned fleshy pink. Yuk.

Nailpolish to the rescue! I love putting nailpolish on things other than my nails.

Carefully apply a layer of polish. The diamonds receive a black coat, for the red ones I use a sealing topcoat. This will keep the beads in place.

Wait patiently for your earrings to dry (which is proably the hardest part...)

While we wait we can make tassels!

I love tassels and this is how I make them:

Wrap sewing-tread around something rectangular. A hardcover book Is ideal because you can cut the ends better. Unfortunately I have no tiny hardcover books, so this box will have to do.

Once you have a nice amount of threads, bind one side together with a tread. Cut the other side.

Divide the threads into four even pieces and then proceed to "scoubidou" or "boondoggle": fold each bundle of threads over the next one, the last one goes through the first loop.

A crochetneedle can help you with the last bit.

Do this 4 or 5 times.

Wrap a piece of thread around the end and cut the ends evenly. TASSEL!

Attach the tassels, the rings and the hooks and reel in the compliments!

(You can probably reel in some fish with these as well... Fish love shiny jewelry)