Marbled Clay Earrings

Friends, let me just warn you that right now in the Artsy House we are officially obsessed with clay.  It all started last week when we played with the new cabochon mold from our friends at Sculpey.  Then, Little Crafter got creative and began making Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles {which you really need to see if you haven’t already!}.  But it didn’t stop there.  As many of you know, I recently performed in a community theater production of the Sound of  Music.  Sunday was our closing show, and I wanted to have a little gift for the director, stage manager, and my fellow nuns.  There were 12 people on my list, so I needed something inexpensive, but I wanted it to be personal and useful too…I decided it was the perfect excuse to get my Sculpey back out and make a bunch of pretty marbled earrings in everyone’s favorite colors!  Take a look…

Marbled Teardrop Earrings made of Sculpey clay

TIME REQUIRED: 5 minutes to create, 30 minutes to bake, 5 minutes to turn into earrings
SKILL LEVEL: easy/moderate
SPECIAL SKILLS: basic wire wrapping

Materials:
Thanks to our friends at Sculpey Polyform for providing the clay and mold I used for this project.
Sculpey Premo! Clay
Sculpey Cabachon Mold
toothpick or clay tool
parchment paper
baking sheet and oven
26 gauge silver coated wire
ear wires
jewelry pliers and wire cutters

Step 1: Choose 2-3 colors of clay you’d like to marble.  I got great results mixing any color with white, mixing different shades of the same color, and mixing colors in the same color family.  Marbling very different colors like turquoise and orange was much more difficult.  Once you choose your colors, take a small piece of each and roll them together between your fingers, pinching and folding the clay until you get the effect you want.  Push your clay into the cabochon mold.  For the earrings, I used the small teardrop shape you see in the bottom center of this photo.

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Step 2: Carefully remove the clay from the mold and place it right side up on a piece of parchment paper.  If you don’t like the way it turned out, just mush it up in your fingers and try again.

Step 3: Repeat steps 1 & 2 so you have two coordinating teardrop shapes.  They won’t be identical, but they should look somewhat similar and complimentary.  It works best if your original ball of clay is large enough to use for both earrings; if you have to create a new mixture for the second one, it won’t look as similar.  Use a toothpick or a clay tool to poke a hole.

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Step 3: Bake according to package directions.  I baked mine on a foil covered baking sheet for 30 minutes at 275 F.

Step 4: Thread 26 gauge wire through the hole and twist one end around the other.  Cut off any extra pieces.

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Step 5: Make a wire loop and continue wrapping the wire until you reach the top of the clay.  Cut the excess.  If you’ve never done wire wrapping before, it’s actually much easier than it looks.  Now would be a great time for you to check out my Basic Wire Wrapping post, then come back for the rest of the instructions!

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Step 6: Twist your ear wire open, place it through the wire loop, and close it tightly.

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Ta-da!  That’s all you need to do to make your own pair of marbled clay earrings!  The bonus is that the clay is very lightweight, so they won’t feel heavy and uncomfortable in your ears.

Sculpey Clay Earrings

I wanted to show you how some of the different color mixtures turned out…each pair is totally unique and beautiful!  Here is a pair I made using a combination of light and dark purple.

Sculpey Clay Earrings

The most popular color combination was fuschia and turquoise.  I love the way it looks when you marble them together; it creates a deep blue in the mix too!  The girls who requested these colors called them “mermaid colors”…I can see that.

Sculpey Clay Earrings

My friend Kat’s favorite colors are turquoise and orange.  These were the hardest to make because if you mix the colors too much, everything just turns brown.  The first pair I tried to make ended up in the trash can, but when I did less blending, I liked the effect a lot.  And so did Kat.

Sculpey Clay Earrings

One of my fellow “nuns,” Kathy chose red as her favorite color.  I did make a pair that were solid red, but they weren’t very interesting, so I decided to try again and marble in some white.  Much better!

Sculpey Clay Earrings

To add an extra personal touch, I printed lyrics from “Climb Ev’ry Mountain” on cardstock, cut them out, and punched holes to hang the earrings.

These were seriously quick and easy to make, and cost me nothing since I already had the clay and the jewelry supplies in my stash.  Everyone loved them, and the bonus was that I made a few more pairs than I needed, so I ended up with some for myself too!  What color combo is your favorite?

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5 Comments

  1. I love these…it’s mostly your projects that have inspired me to play with clay too! I even got a local clay “artist” to come to my mommy night on Saturday to teach us a bunch of tricks! We really need to live closer.

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