Bass Clef Faux Gauges

If you've ever played in a band or orchestra before, you'll probably recognize these as bass clefs. They're in sheet music for instruments like the cello, euphonium, double bass, bass guitar, bassoon, contrabassoon, trombone, baritone, tuba, timpani, harp and keyboard instruments. 

Not gonna lie, I had some help from Wikipedia for that list. 

But wait, there's more!I made these into cute faux gauges. Basically, embed the post half of an earring into the front, and the back half into...well, the back half. Just make sure you also poke a hole in the clay so that the post has enough room for when you actually put the halves together.
 Also see my post on Tentacle Faux Gauges if you haven't already!

Hearthstone Charms

If any of you are gamers, you've probably seen these before:

Hearthstones! They're an item from the game World of Warcraft that allows the user to transport to a previously set location. Read up on it here.

These charms are super simple to make, and they're a cute gift too! Just give one to someone special and tell them that now they can teleport to any place of residence once every 30 minutes. 

I used this Fimo rock effect clay for the base. 

Then use a sharp blade to slice off pieces at angles to create a rock shape. Use a blunt point (I used a knitting needle) to make the swirl.

Stick an eyepin through it to make a charm. Then, after baking, use some blue shimmery paint to define the swirl.

Happy teleporting :)

Enchanted Noms

This summer has been way hotter than any I've experienced before. Incidentally, this happens every single summer. So what have I been doing to keep my sanity in this air-condition-less state? Watch old Disney movies, of course. And making earrings!

Based on one of my favorites, Cinderella. If you're not familiar with the story (shame on you!) the right earring is a normal pumpkin and the right is Cinderella's enchanted carriage. Just make sure you take these off before midnight, or the magic might wear off ;)

Ice Cream Sammiches

Ice cream sandwiches are a favorite warm weather food of mine. The soft chocolatey...what are they anyway? Soft cookie? Thinner and more delicious variation of whoopie pie?

But I digress.

Neapolitan ice cream sandwiches are delicious. And cute. And that's all you really needed to know.

Start out with some super dark brown polymer clay in rounded rectangles. 

Use an X-acto knife to make little grooves in the sides.

And use some sort of point to make the little holes. I used the tip of a knitting needle.

Next, make little blocks of pink, white, and light brown clay for ice cream.

The perfect charm for summertime :)

Rain Cloud Earrings

Okay, so I lied.

Those pokeball earrings are no longer my favorites. These are:

They were pretty straightforward to make: shape the clay, wire them up, bake, paint, and chain. I used white clay for the clouds and then painted them with a coat of bright white and a light dusting of shimmery translucent glitter. Then I used the pointy end of a toothpick for the eyes and the stubby end for the cheeks.The raindrops were blue clay painted a shimmery navy blue with just a bit of silver near the tops. 

Pokeball Studs

I know! I haven't blogged in over a month! D:
But I'm going to make it up by posting a tutorial for my new favorite pair of earrings. Ready?

Start out with two flattened circles of the same size in red and white. Make sure to do the white one first so the red dye doesn't blend over from your fingers. 

Cut each in half.

And re-assemble them.

Then cut thin slices of black clay and lay them over the seam.

Make another flattened white circle about 1/4 the size of the one you made before. Also, roll out some black clay very very thinly.

Wrap the black clay around your white circle.

That's right, pokeballs.

Then, y'know, bake clay according to the package instructions, glaze if desired, and glue to earring posts.

Mini Animal Studs

Did you know that I can wear any post earrings now? =D

I made these little critters out of polymer clay to celebrate with me!

They're pretty simple to make-- just take two chunks of the same size to make the base, and then stick on other small pieces of clay for the details. I found that an x-acto knife helped with cutting out the beaks on the birds and detailing the wings and the feet. 

I also used a tooth pick to help attach the eyes and noses, since my fingers weren't so great at evenly squishing the clay down and keeping it round. 

Cherry Bow Earrings

Aside from cupcakes, I think that cherries and bows might be the cutest things that you can wear. Unless of course, your kitty is of the fat and cuddly variety :)

So why not combine them?

Start out with some gold wire. This is 20 gauge gold colored brass wire.

Make bow-ish shapes out if it. I didn't actually tie bows like you do with your shoelaces, because this wire is a bit too thick to do nice knots with. So I made two loops and wrapped one of the legs around the center.

I don't have a photo for this, but afterwards I took the longer leg and wrapped it around the center twice more to make it look neater. You can see the end result in the next photo:

Then I took some polymer clay and made little "cherry" balls with them. I wanted to paint them later with red nail polish to give them a juicy look, so I just used up my white reject clay -- white clay that has little carpet fibers in it that I can't use for actual white projects.

After baking the clay, I covered it with two coats of bright red nail polish and one coat of clear.

Then, just use some hot glue and attach them to earring posts!Enjoy your luscious earrings ;)

Faux Gauges

Just a quick post right now-- I've been a bit busier than usual lately.

A few weeks ago, I saw a few photos of really pretty gauge earrings, but I didn't want to have to stretch my ears. So, with some more research, I stumbled upon this technique to make faux gauges! 

They're wearable with any normally pierced ears. Just start out making gauges, and then slice them in half where you'd like the front and back to divide, stick posts and backings into each half, respectively, and then cover them up with a bit of clay. You'll want to stick the posts into the backings before you bake to make sure you make a hole in the clay large enough to easily put in the earrings later.

Enjoy your pretty non-stretched ears :)

Food Charms

A continuation of my recent earring spree: More earrings that I can't wear until November! I'm pretty sure that I'm insane to be tempting myself with these now, but what's made is made.

They all have a loop at the top where you can slide them on and off of a pair of kidney ear wires, so they're easily mix-and-match-able ;)
They're made out of polymer clay with a coat of clear nail polish for seal and shine (after baking). It's pretty straightforward making them-- I just googled up photos of my favorite foods and then mixed and made the clay, but if there's any one in particular that you'd like a tutorial for, leave me a message :)

Hungry Mouse Part 2

I baked it! And nothing charred! No grilled mouse and crackers today =D
My camera decided to break today though, so I can't show you the finished product yet. Not that it changed much from yesterday-- I just made little indentations for eyes, a hole for a jump ring so I could put a chain on it and wear it as a necklace, and then I glazed it when it cooled down. I'll edit this post with a photo of that asap though!
Finished product! I had to use my backup camera which didn't want to focus...but you get the idea, yeah?

But for now, tutorial time!
For the cracker, I used straight up yellow Sculpy III. Make a flat round shape first. Then cut out a rounded triangle shape, and smooth it all out with your fingers. This doesn't have to look perfect, since the mouse will be covering most of it anyway.
Sorry I forgot to take pictures until I was almost done the cracker. It's easy stuff though, so hopefully you can figure it out anyway. Send me a message if you're having trouble with it and I'll try to help!

Then, take an x-acto knife, and make little cuts around the edge. Run your thumb around the edge to smooth out the harsh lines just a bit.

To make the circle shapes, I used a ball point pen with a retractable ink tube. Just make sure you don't press too hard, otherwise you might end up with ink on your cracker!
Next comes the mouse. I suggest making a body shape first and holding it up to the cracker to make sure the mouse will turn out about the right size when you're done.The body is 2 parts yellow to 3 parts white. These were the shapes I used:

Just the general idea: you'll probably have to reshape some of the parts as you're going. Also, I would advise that you have the tail lay down next to / on top of the mouse (as opposed to sticking out), and to not make the ears too thin, to minimize the chances of breakage.

*nibblenibble*
Then do all the other stuff that I mentioned at the top of this post, if you like. If you feel like being really fancy, you could add little bits of thin wire for whiskers, use a different color nose, line the ears with pink, cut little teeth marks into the cracker, make a jelly cookie instead of a cracker...have fun with it!

Hungry Mouse

So this is the first polymer clay project I've tried in a while. Just because clay is kind of annoying to me in that it dries out, gets hard, is a bit messy, and you need to bake it. I'll stop complaining now though. 
The easy part is over and done with...sculpting the clay:

Based on some picture that I found online...a long time ago. I'll try to find it again to credit it. 
So tomorrow is the hard part- baking. I always manage to mess up the baking part of this somehow, and end up with burnt tips or bottoms, even though I think I'm following the instructions (15 minutes per quarter inch thickness??)I'll try taking it reaaaally slow this time though, and just 5-10 mins at a time, because I really don't want to burn this little cutie!
If you have any advice, leave me a comment before tomorrow afternoon, and I'll try it out!
Tutorial for this coming SOON. Stay tuned :]

Charmies!

Yes, the food jewelry is still in :)
Polymer clay + gummy bears charm bracelet:

Cupcake, onigiri, mario mushrooms, and peas!
Also, conversation hearts: 

 Because they taste disgusting, but they're so cute!
Out of curiosity now, does anyone actually like the taste of convo hearts? Or are they just a classic because of the cute phrases? ;)
More bracelets to come very soon!