Mini Succulent Stud Earrings

My apartment is full of succulents, since everyone living there forgets to water the plants. Still, we've had a few close calls with almost killing our succulents, but we like having plants around. These are perfect, since they'll never die and you can take them with you wherever you go!

Materials

• Polymer clay, in green and another color.
  • Here I used the yellow-green from Sophie and Toffee's original formula of clay, and Sculpey III in silver. Granite might also be a nice color for this.
• A needle tool
• E6000 glue
• Earring posts
• An oven

Optional

• A bottle of acrylic paint, or something similar to use as a platform to sculpt on
• Glaze (I like varathane polyurethane!)
• Any other findings (bails, ring bases)

Take a tiny ball of silver clay and flatten.

Taking a tiny ball of green clay, shape it into a teardrop. Using your needle tool, make a light indent at the center of the leaf.

Fold the leaf in half, and pinch together to shape the leaf.

Repeat this to make approximately 10 more leaves, and again 5 more times with slightly smaller leaves.

Using your needle, start placing the leaves on your base, pressing in with the needle to blend the clay together securely.

Repeat this with your first 10 or so leaves, until you complete making leaves around the entire base.

Now you're on your second leaf layer! :D

Using the 5 smaller leaves, repeat step 3, overlaying your leaves on top of the first layer. I find that using 5 leaves is just enough to fill in this space, and it looks more natural, but you can use however many you want.

Now, you might notice that there's now a gap in the center of your succulent. This step will fix that!

Roll out a tiny, tapered snake of clay, and flatten

Roll this up to form a tiny rose-like swirl.

Use your needle to place this at the center of your leaves. You can use a bit of liquid clay to 'glue' this in place.

Bake according to your clay packaging directions. Typically it tends to be around 275°F or 130°C, but be sure to read the directions on your clay specifically. The clay I'm using here bakes at 120°-130°C, slightly lower than the regular temperature.

TIP: Be careful to bake your clay thoroughly. Under-baking causes crumbly clay! Also watch your oven and beware of burning!

Now you should have your 2 mini succulents, earring posts, and E6000 glue.

Put a tiny drop of glue onto your earring post, and put this on your mini succulent. Wait about 20 minutes for it to dry.

And now you're done! You can glaze these if you want them to look shinier.

I also made a succulent to glue to a bail to make a succulent necklace pendant! These could also be glued onto ring bases. Make a whole set of succulent jewelry!