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!

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 ;)

Invincibility on your ears

Remember those old Super Mario games where those little bouncing stars appeared when you hit the right blocks? Then you'd be granted temporary invincibility and proceed to run forth as fast as you could, cackling as you plowed right through the otherwise menacing goombas. 

Well now you can carry that protection everywhere you go on your ears!

The stars are origami made from paper strips. If you don't know how to make them, you can view my tutorial here. Then I applied one coat of clear gloss, painted on the eyes, and finished with another coat of gloss. When stringing them on eyepins, I've found that it's a lot easier to first use a sewing pin to poke a hole. From there on, just cut the eyepins to different lengths and attach them to earwires. Easy!

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.

Faux Pearl Earrings

These faux-pearl ones are super cheap and amazingly easy to make too!

This would be a great project if you have broken sewing pins. You can't really tell from my photo, but one of the pins I used has a small split on the end which snags fabric, and the other is a bit bent.

Start out with two pretty sewing pins. You may recognize these from my pincushion ring tutorial. I bought a whole box of 50 or so a few years ago for about $2 :)

Use a pair of wire cutters to shorten the metal posts. You may want to find a pair of post earrings you have to get the correct length.

Get some sandpaper and round off the sharp edges you just made.

Now find something for the backings. I have a ton of these squishy rubbery things that come with most store-bought post earrings. They fit perfectly on my pins. 

Seafoam Dangles

These might be my favorite pair of wire earrings so far. I know, I keep saying that, and it's because I love all most of the earrings that I make, but the color of these glass beads just make me feel like I'm at the beach, one of my favorite places to be. 

I actually got this craft wire pegboard type thing (it looks like this, with movable pegs) on sale for $4, which I used for most of the wire form, except for the small curls on the ends. It certainly made it easier to make two almost identical shapes, one of my weaknesses, but it does take some getting used to. 

Gold Curves

I really love how this pair turned out! I actually had no idea in mind when I started making these, but I really liked how the first earring looked, so I just replicated it for the second :)

And I made yet another earring rack, because I started running out of room on my pyramid! Tutorial coming soon :)

Quick Enameling

Okay, so it's not really enameling-- it's nail polish. It is quite a bit cheaper, faster, and easier though, and yields quite excellent results in my experience.

For example, I got a set of all plain silver colored earrings cheaply (except the cherry ones). There they are in various states of completion.

I usually use 1-3 coats of color, depending on the brand of nail polish and how opaque I want the color to be. You really don't need a clear top coat unless you put glitter or something on top.

Note though that your color might come out slightly different over metal with a gold vs. silver colored finish. It's not very clear in the photographs, but my one coat of green came out significantly darker on the gold cherry leaves than on the silver turtles. 

If you happen to have some plain looking jewelry, this is a great way to spruce it up. And if you mess up, it comes off with nail polish remover :)

That said, I can't guarantee that all the harsh chemicals in these products will not harm your jewelry, so please do not try this on anything valuable!

Screw Earrings

Ah, what's not to love about looking like you just came out of a hardware accident?

You'll just need to clamp your two screws in a vice and use a hacksaw to cut off the threaded part of it...

...and then hot glue them to earring posts. Does it get any simpler? ;)

Earring Pyramid

So this is what I'm currently using to hold all of my "normal" earrings (posts and dangles)....

As you can see, it's a basic square-based pyramid shape. I used leftover base molding from a house renovation project for the frame. The bottom pieces are about 6" long and 1" high, and the sides are about 7.5 x 1". 

Then I used a 1/16 drill bit to drill holes along the bottom and sides for post earrings. I staggered them so that larger earrings could fit on the top row without blocking the holes to the lower ones. I also drilled some holes in the sides for even larger earrings.

When all of your pieces are drilled and sanded, assemble them with hot glue and then spraypaint if desired.

I then strung embroidery floss around the inside of the boards so I could hang danglies too. Use a dab of hot glue and make sure you pull the string taut so it doesn't sag too much when you put weighty earrings on it. You may want to put a bit more hot glue over the string too just in case. 

Here it is from the outside.

And there you have your multi-functional earring pyramid :)

Beach Glass Earrings

During a recent trip to the beach, I took a walk along the shore, hoping to collect some pretty seashells. Suddenly, I saw a small green one peaking out from the sand, and upon uncovering it, I discovered it was a piece of beach glass.

And thus my new obsession began...

Since it is so rare for me to find beach glass on the shore, I decided I'd have to make my own if I wanted to use it for jewelry. 

This is the first pair of earrings I made with my own glass. I'm not entirely sure if I like this pair...I definitely could have done a better job with the wire wrapping. Maybe I'll re-make these in the future. I was very lucky though that I had two pieces that were so similar in shape, as I had no control over how my glass broke.

I'll be posting a tutorial shortly on how to make your own beach glass ;)

Heart Danglies

I've been getting really into wire working lately, but I'm afraid I'm still not very good at it. Especially at making my two earrings even. I know in my mind that I should start out by cutting two equal sized pieces of wire before twisting them, but somehow it never happens once I get down to the making. 

Nevertheless, I'm pretty happy with the results. I used 20 gauge brass wire with glass beads, 3 pairs of pliers, and lots of patience. I'm going to keep at it though, and hopefully practice with wire will make perfect :)

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 :)

Origami Cranes Part 3 - Dangle Charms

Now I pretty much loved how the crane earrings turned out (check out folding the crane and making the earrings first if you haven't already), but I thought they could use an extra bit of shine. After sitting and thinking (read: taking a nap) for a few hours, I came up with the idea of little dangling beads. 
I had a few of these sparkly silver colored beads left over from my kanzashi flower tutorial:

And I soon had them wired and looped up.All well and good, I thought, but I have five pairs of earrings and not so many beads. The solution? Swirly connectors!

I don't know if these exist or not, but I'm going to be calling them swirlies :)Just start out making a shape like a treble clef and close the bead loop into the top of it. 
You can then swirl these onto the bottom loop of any of your cranes...

These should stay on with no problem unless you're doing some serious gymnastics throughout your day.
You could wear just these as earrings too:

Did I mention how I love the easy change-ability of kidney ear wires? ;)

Origami Cranes Part 2 - Earrings

As you can probably tell from the title, there's the answer to yesterday's mystery!

These were made based on a little idea that I had-- just have a little dangle charm with a loop that can easily slide on and off kidney ear wires for super space saving and thriftiness! I have dozens of earrings now, and only needed to obtain one pair of ear wires: the most expensive part of my earrings :)

I tried different techniques to color the paper too, since I didn't want just solid colors. Thin tipped markers and water colors! (Click here to see the origami crane tutorial)

Just poke a hole straight through the crane with a needle, run some wire through, and make little loops on the ends. 

They also have three coats of varnish to waterproof and stabilize the paper.
The loop on the bottom may look a bit odd now, but just wait until the next post to see what they're meant for ;)