Supplies:
- Polymer clay
- Oven to cook clay in
- Cookie sheet
- Parchment paper so clay does not touch cookie sheet directly
- O rings and earing hooks
- Needle nose pliers
- Clay tools
- Mold. You can find my digital mold design on Etsy and in my shop. Then use a 3D printer to print the mold. I can also sell physical molds. For physical molds, please contact me at
- UV resin and UV light to cure the resin. Direct sunlight will also cure UV resin.
Steps:
- Roll out polymer clay
- Use molds to cut shapes out of your polymer clay
- Clean up molds if needed and create holes for jewelry pieces to go through once baked
- Apply UV resin to all sides of polymer clay pieces to create a nice shinny covering, and make your pieces more durable.
- Use needle nose pliers to attach o rings and earring hooks to pieces.
You will first need to roll out your polymer clay. I used my clay tool to help me roll out my clay. If your polymer clay is very hard you can use some Vaseline and knead it into the clay to soften it. Just do not soften it too much. You can also place popsicle stick on either side of your clay to help you roll out your clay evenly. Your tool should roll over the popsicle sticks and thus not roll your clay thinner than the thickness of the popsicle sticks. This is a great trick to help get even thicknesses of your clay when rolling it out.
The next step is to press your mold into your clay. Then pull away the extra clay. You can then flip your mold over and clean up any of the extra clay that might still be on your mold. You can clean the edges with a tool or your finger. If you do not mind using your finger, this seems to be the quickest and easier method, Just rub your finger over the edges with extra clay and they come off nicely.
Before placing your piece in the oven, do not forget to make holes for the jewelry clasps to go through. I used my clay tool to make these holes. If your clay gets stuck in your mold, then you can also use this time to make the needed holes which will also help push your clay through the mold.
It is now time to place your clay pieces into the oven. Polymer clay bakes at 275F for about 30 minutes per 1/4 inch of thickness. I place all of my pieces on parchment paper on a cookie sheet. This helps protect my cookie sheet from non-food safe items. Let your polymer clay sit and cool off after removing it from the oven. It will harden a little more as it cools.
Once your polymer clay is hardened and had time to cool down you can add UV resin to give your clay a glossy finished look as well as make it even harder and more durable. I recommend using UV resin because of its quick dry time for these small pieces. UV resin requires a UV light or direct sunlight to cure.
Make sure not to get any of the resin in the holes you made for the jewelry clasps. You can place parchment paper or silicon in the holes to help prevent any resin from covering the holes. If resin does get in the holes, you can use a drill to create new holes. I ended up needing to do this.
Once your resin has cured (hardened), you can add your jewelry pieces. I used two O rings to join two hair pieces together. I thought about using a third O ring, but thought that might make the earrings to long. To open and close the O rings I use two pliers and pull the O ring left and right. I do the same motion to close the O ring. It is easier to see this in the video than to explain it.
Lastly clean off the earing pieces before inserting them into your ear and show them off. If you have been seeing beautiful clay earrings and wanted to try your hand at them, then these might be a good place to start. It will let you get a feel for working with polymer clay without having to combine different clay parts. It also allows you to feel how it is to work with clay molds. Clay likes to show every fingerprint and imperfection. So, it is okay if you have to redo a few pieces. My camera is almost too good and shows a lot more of my imperfections than was noticeable with the naked eye. My earrings are definitely not perfect, but I had fun making them and working with polymer clay. No one is perfect the first time. The more you work with it, the better you will become and the more you will learn. So, it is okay if they are not perfect your first attempt. The nice thing about clay is you can squish it together and start over if you do not like it.
