BENGALURU: Ever experienced the thrill of wearing something you made with your hands?
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.
Materials
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 and an OTG oven.
Method
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.
(https://imprintshandmade.blogspot.in)