Animal earrings in polymer clay DIY

Ever experienced the thrill of wearing something you made with your hands? It could be a dress, a cap, a necklace, a pair of earrings, anything...

Learning to make and appreciate the value of labour is the need of the hour in today's consumerist world. My friend and the ever-dynamic Sankgetha Sripathy who runs Smudgy Trove, has shared a tutorial of making cute animal earrings with clay.  She has used polymer clay to make the stud earrings that you can easily learn and keep aside for a toddler, teen or wear yourself to show off at a party. 

These simple pieces are conversation starters.

What you need:

-- polymer clay black, and white

-- super glue or multi-surface glue 

-- knife

-- jump rings

-- cutting plier (jewellery tool)

-- nose plier

-- black stud with screw

-- headpin (jewellery finding)

-- and of course a must for these projects, an OTG oven

It's best to share one that a friend has bought if you do not have one yet and do not want to buy right away.

Roll two tiny round balls from the black polymer clay, using your palms and fingers. Press one ball between your palms and flatten it slightly. Repeat with the other ball.

Roll two tiny white balls and fix on the flattened clay to form an animal's eyes. You can add a super tiny ball to fix near the eyes, for effect.

For the eyes, use another set of black polymer clay dots and fix to form animal expressions.

Poke using a headpin to form its mouth, a little below the eyes and between them.

Use another little mound of the clay to roll a cone.

Repeat for other earring. Flatten the cones a little to form your animal's ear.

Fix the ears on top of the animal head that has come to shape.

Now insert the headpins through another cone that you roll, bigger than those weeny bit ears and the face, to form the creature's body.

Roll tiny balls and fix below this body-cone, to form legs.

Go back to the head or face now. Roll two tiny balls and place under the head.

Bake these two pieces that are ready, separately in the OTG oven for about 15 minutes. Allow them to cool down

Time to take the stud, glue it using the super glue on to the rear of the face.

Repeat for the other earring too. Move over now, to the body pieces, where the headpin is protruding from the body. Use a nose plier and bend the piece that is jutting out, into a loop, towards the body. And then insert the stud through this. Use a stud screw to fasten to your ears.

The earrings are ready for use. You can experiment, and make them with animals of your choice, in different colours.

These earrings make for great personal gifts. They can be worn by teens and adults alike. And make for perfect gifts.

PICTURES COURTESY: Sankgetha Sripathy of Smudgy Trove

Content by  Sankgetha Sripathy and Radhika M B

Super simple polymer clay earring studs DIY

One of the reasons that crafting enthusiasts do not venture into making baked jewelry/jewellery, is the fear of lacking skills. It is a valid fear. But all it takes is that one small project, that helps overcome it. Today's polymer clay jewelry making experts are yesterday's novices.

Smudgy Trove's dashing entrepreneur Sankgetha Sripathy is someone who can dole out exquisite jewelry designs, exquisite and simple, ethnic and chic, with ease. Her Imprints Handmade early tutorial on polymer clay jhumkas continues to draw visits in thousands. If you can lay hands on an OTG oven, or borrow its use from a friend, you can start a project.

For those taking baby steps in clay jewelry, she has quickly put together easy peasy instructions to make a pair of polymer clay stud earrings.

Here are the materials you need:

- jewelry/jewellery pliers

- one mound of polymer clay the size of a plum, a dark colour

- one ball of polymer clay, in light colour, about half the size of the other ball

- clay blade

- tapestry needle, or toothpick, or large needle

- stud-backs and stud screws

- sequins

- anything that can cut a disc, like polymer clay cutters with disc cutters

Start by making two balls of equal size from the dark sized polymer ball between your palms.

The smaller ball needs to be broken and kneaded into several tiny balls using your fingers.

Make discs out of the dark balls and use the tiny balls to make drop or oval shapes of similar size. Fix the drops on the discs to form a design, to resemble a flower.

 Add a sequin to form the flower center.

Use the tapestry needle. Run it gently between these drop shaped fixes to make them look like petals.

Bake these diskettes as per instructions on the clay packet. Sankgetha used Premo clay, a popular choice for beginners.

Use industrial grade glue to fix the stud-backs to the rears of these designed diskettes.

Let the pieces dry. And then use the stud screws on them.

Your super simple pair of earrings with polymer clay are ready.

Wear them to work or keep aside for an occasion.

Pics courtesy: Sankgetha Sripathy

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Re-use that plastic ring from your water bottle: How to

I collect caps of plastic bottles crazy. They say recycling companies are not equipped to separate bottle caps before the bottles get crushed for recycling. And so I try hard, to wash juice bottles and keep the bottle caps. Am dreaming of making full use of all my bottle caps some day.

But it was that oblivious fitting underneath the bottle cap that caught my attention the other day. What if those rings that work as pull tabs when you turn the cap to open it can be repurposed?

The plastic ring works to make such bottles tamper proof. When you trash the bottle or call the local recycle shop guy over to collect them, the ring becomes an invisible collateral.

A million ways may exist to put these rings to use in some way around home I bet. My easiest project was to grab those jewellery/jewelry pliers and some thread. Read on.

Your basic step before starting the project off is of course to pull the ring off the plastic bottle. An easy bit. If managing to push it out of those cap screwing ridges becomes a problem, get a tweezer, a blunt knife, or the edge of a barrette clip to help. Or a jewellery plier that can help bend the bottle a little so you drag the ring out.

You will notice that the ring has protrusions that originally attached them to the bottle cap. Obviously they need to be covered, lest they poke you.

I made earrings from these, threaded ones. It helps that I have such rings around now, because instead of heading to a store for fancy trinklets that cost a fortune, I can simply make a bunch in different colours to go with my clothes.

What you need for the project is:

- an embroidery skein for a start - I chose summery yellow

- a pair of scissors

- a jewellery plier

- fish hooks and jump rings

- plastic or wooden jewellery rings of smaller size or diameter

- rings off the plastic water bottles

- craft glue

- a craft stick to help with the gluing

- optional - a tapestry needle

And you are good to go.

Begin by threading the plastic ring one after the other.

I tried threading two rings together. It does not work unless you run super glue to attach two such rings. Given their easy-bend quality, I gave the idea up.

Leave about four inches of the yellow thread hanging before you start with the rolling of the thread. When you roll the six-thread skein over the ring, the thread tends to sit unevenly. Use your fingers to nudge stray threads towards the stack. In the process, you may find extra thread sitting over an existing layer, making the threaded ring look rough. It's your first effort. So take it easy. Let it be.

Knot the thread from the finishing end with the four-inch piece you had left hanging. When you cut the finishing end off, remember to leave another four inches. Repeat the process with the other ring.

Here is why  you leave the extra bit of thread: these rings vary in width depending on the size of plastic water bottles. The ones I had were fragile and bent easily, which meant that they would not last long on my ears. I needed something sturdier to hold them. The left over piece of skeins I used, to thread the smaller rings that would actually hold these larger ones.

Rolling the thread over on the smaller ring was a tricky effort. You can use the tapestry needle or craft stick to help with the process, by pushing the thread in and out the ring's hollow.

I wanted to avoid using jump rings to attach the small and big rings, which is why the knots with thread. Towards the end, you may tie another knot to finish the threading, and glue it into the rolled thread to seal the thread.

Repeat it with the other set of rings. And let the glue dry for about half an hour. Find jump rings large enough to fit the thickness of the smaller rings that are threaded. Use the jewellery plier to fix the jump rings.

Next, bring out those fish hooks and use the plier again, to insert into the jump rings.

Your pair of summer earrings are ready.

They work fine for casual wear and if you need something funky but simple at work. I would love to wear them for a beach trip, and not worry too much if I lost them. My suggestion is that you do not go buy a plastic water bottle for the sake of making earrings. Pick up a ring from a bottle that got thrust on you at work, or some event.

 

Enjoy the set, or gift away.

 

Who knew a plastic tab could adorn ears!



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Pictures courtesy: Radhika M B

Simple pendant with air dry clay:DIY

Terracotta jewellery/jewelry is a rage in India today, just as paper-quilling has taken the DIY world by storm.

Buy a gorgeous Anarkali or saree and you can get a custom-made set of necklace, earrings and bangles or bracelets to go with it. Design has taken such a happy dimension in making clay accessories, that you can get simple work-wear sets too. Social media is abuzz with home-based entrepreneurs  giving wings to their creativity.

For the uninitiated though, making terracotta jewellery can be intimidating, mainly because of the baking complication involved. For the experts, it is a matter of getting their hands dirty and thriving on the technique.

Uma Karthik and Sankgetha Sripathy of Smudgy Trove and Mann-made Jewels are such terracotta jewellery artists who can turn a handful of clay into grab-worthy treasures. They give an easy-peasy method to get you started with the beautiful art. You do not need an OTG oven for this, because you can choose the alternative available -- air-dry clay, that does not need baking.

Here they are, materials required for the DIY pendant:

-- air-dry clay
-- a roller to flatten the clay
-- a flat surface on which you may roll it
-- nose plier
-- knife
-- cutting plier, the jewellery cutting kind
-- Nichrome wire, 26 gauge
-- cookie cutters or any cutter that will give your clay the right shape
-- acrylic paints of two colours
-- paint brush
-- black thread to string the pendant
-- an extra bead with a larger hole, to fit two strings of the black thread

Roll a little ball of clay from your air-dry clay stash. Place it on a flat surface and roll it.

You will get an irregular circle. Use the cookie cutter or other clay cutters to get a flat disc.

You may use your creativity, and give any shape to the pendant on the wet clay.

Use a knife to etch some simple design on the flat clay disc that is ready. Next, it is time to fix a little bead to the disc, to make the pendant's dangler. 

For this, get a half inch piece of the Nichrome wire from the wire role using the cutting pliers and make a bit. You can use this to loop to make a `U' shape and fix the hanging mini-bead.

Use another such U-shaped piece, to insert into the opposite end of the hanging bead.

After the disc is ready, go ahead and dry the piece in the sun, for about half a day. If you have a terracotta piece, you will need to bake it in a little clay pot with some charcoal. 

Time to paint the piece. Uma Karthik has used black paint for a start. And added some gold and red to it. A single coat is sufficient for air-dry variety of clay. You will need to let the paint dry though.

Once the painting part is done, it is time to string the black thread into the loop that you made. You can choose the length based on your preference of how it must hang. 

Use both the ends and insert them into another bead and knot. This is to help partly adjust its height when you wear it on a daily basis. 

Optionally, you can make some beads, air dry them and paint them too, to string into either sides of the pendant loop. They added a pair of earrings to the beautiful pendant and sent a picture of the elegant set.

Is the set not gorgeous! Wear your pendant for that casual do, to work, a dinner or a fun day. 

Do not get intimidated by the idea of making clay jewellery. It is all about shedding those doubts in your head about how your piece may turn out and dive right into making it. 

A big shout out to the girls for sharing the done-in-a-jiffy project steps.

PICTURES AND METHOD COURTESY: Uma Karthik and Sankgetha Sripathy of Mann-made Jewels and Smudgy Trove

Check their Facebook pages for more details.

Copyrights to the pictures rest with Smudgy Trove and Mann-made Jewels.

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