Make Polymer Clay Earrings with Jewelry Street

What we used to achieve this result is the following:

• Polymer clay in the desired color, we use the FIMO color recipe 'Hot Choco' from Sieradenstraatje with 2.5 parts extra white
• A circle cutter 25mm
• Circle connector (charm) 16mm
• Capsule shape cutter 15mm from the Stud set C
• If you like a texture roller, we used the “fine line” roller from Sieradenstraatje
• Earring posts 4mm (and backs)
• A hand drill with a 1.2mm bit, a small cordless drill with a 4mm bit
• Superglue (we use GorillaGlue superglue gel )
• UV epoxy and UV (nail) lamp
• 2 pieces 7mm gold jump rings
• Pliers to open the jump rings
• Sandpaper : waterproof sandpaper grit 1200, 600 and 320
• Oven at 110 degrees
• Pasta machine (we use a Marcato Atlas 150)
• Tissue blade
  

Cleaning your work environment and tools

Let's get started! It's important that your work environment is clean. Polymer clay quickly attracts dust and hair, and we don't want that. We clean everything with a cleaning cloth, including the pasta machine, roller, and work surface.

Conditioning preparing your clay

Take your clay and run it through the pasta machine a few times. We set the pasta machine to number 0, which gives a thickness of about 2.7 mm.

Polymer clay contains a plasticizer that must be mixed thoroughly to make it soft and workable. Be careful not to get any air bubbles in your clay, as these will unfortunately rise to the surface when you bake it, and you'll see that. This is the best way to soften your clay and make it workable; we call it conditioning the clay.

Once your clay is shiny, soft, and smooth, you can start working with it (after about 15 runs through the pasta machine). Clay that hasn't been properly conditioned will break and crumble when folded. Then, place the clay on a glazed tile, acrylic slab, polished marble slab, or glass slab. These are materials your clay can stick to, which is very important when using cutters. We use a polished marble slab for our work.

 After placing it on your work surface, roll it again with an acrylic roller without applying excessive pressure. This way, the clay adheres well to the surface and reduces the chance of it sticking to the cutters. If this does happen, for example, with small, narrow cutters, read our blog post: " Help, my clay keeps sticking to my shapes " for tips and tricks. If you want texture, now's also the time for your textured roller/mat. We use the "fine lines" textured roller from Sieradenstraatje.

Cutting out the shapes and removing your work surface

Now your clay is completely ready for cutting out the circle and capsule with your cutters. The Sieradenstraatje cutters are very sharp and have an edge of only 0.4mm, so you get nice, straight, professional-looking cuts. The cutter's edge is thin, but pressing hard on well-conditioned clay is unnecessary.

After cutting out the shapes, slowly and carefully remove any excess clay (place this in a dust-free container for later use).

And voila, there are your unbaked earrings.

Did you preheat the oven to 110 degrees Celsius? Great, now's the time to line a baking dish with parchment paper. Parchment paper prevents your earrings from sticking to the bottom.

And now for something you might need some practice with: removing your earrings with a tissue blade. Try not to make any cutting motions, as this can deform your earrings. Hold the blade about 20 degrees from your workbench, next to your earrings. It's best to start by removing the narrowest part. Try to remove the entire earring with a smooth, rotating motion, and then make a single cutting motion downwards (not up and down like a saw).

Now place your creations on the baking paper. We always cut a small sheet of baking paper, about 10 by 10 cm, to place over the earring and, WITHOUT pressing, smooth out the corners of the earring to ensure there are no small bits sticking up. You want a neat, straight, and professional result.

TIP: If you discover a speck, dust, or hair on your clay earrings BEFORE baking, dip a cotton swab in the rubbing alcohol and gently, without applying pressure, rub it over the dirt. This will dissolve the very top layer of polymer clay and remove the dirt easily (but prevention is better than cure, of course).

Baking the earrings

Now your earrings are ready to be baked. Preheat the oven to 230 degrees Fahrenheit (110 degrees Celsius) or as indicated on your clay packaging. If you're unsure if your oven is accurate, you can always use an oven thermometer to check how your oven is performing.

We don't stick to the 30-minute baking time indicated on the FIMO packaging. We always bake our clay for 40-50 minutes! The baking time doesn't matter; it only makes it stronger. However, sometimes baking longer can cause certain things to discolor or deepen in color, such as alcohol ink. So, it's always a matter of experimenting! What does matter is the right temperature and not baking too short. You can bake (or re-bake) clay as often as you like.

After your earrings are baked, let them cool. You can also shock them in ice water. They'll be instantly cooled and strong!

Sanding and polishing

Now it's time to sand and polish your earrings until they're nice and smooth (you can also polish them to a nice high shine, but we won't do that now). If you used a texture roller, be careful not to sand away the texture. Sanding really makes a difference; make sure you sand away any bumps and imperfections for a polished, professional look.

We'll start with wet/dry (waterproof) sandpaper (320 grit) to remove imperfections (on the edges and surfaces) and to smooth and even the edges. 320 grit is quite coarse, so be careful not to sand off too much. Then, finish the earrings with 600 grit sandpaper. This softens the small sanding scratches (which are barely visible to the naked eye) and gives them a more finished look. Polish with 1200 grit. This is a very fine grit that makes your clay nice and smooth. These types of sandpaper are often not available at a hardware store, so look for them at a specialty store or online.

Wet or dry sanding? That's a personal preference. However, if you wet sand, you inhale less sanding dust, which is much healthier! Dry sanding can also leave tiny scratches because you're sanding the dust into the ear. That doesn't happen with wet sanding (under the tap or in a bowl of water). Since I'm only making one pair of earrings right now, I dry sand.

After sanding, you can give the earrings a bath and pat them dry. Now they're completely ready for the next step.

Making holes and attaching posts

Now we're going to punch holes and attach the post.

It's helpful to make tiny marks where you want to drill the holes. We're drilling from front to back, and for this tutorial, we're using a hand drill. However, if you're comfortable with an electric drill, like a Dremel, that's fine too. The diameter of the drill bit depends somewhat on the thickness of your jump ring. Usually, a maximum of 1.2 mm is sufficient.

Once the holes are in, it's time for an important and special job: attaching the posts. Everyone does it differently, but we'll describe our method. This way, it's guaranteed to be strong, and the posts won't break easily.

First, you'll need a drill with a drill bit the same diameter as your posts. We prefer 4mm posts, so we have a 4mm drill bit on our cordless drill. Place the drill on the back of the part where you want to attach the post and SLOWLY drill into the clay to a depth of about 1 mm. This will create a small cavity for the posts to sink into.

Next, apply a small drop of adhesive gel (we use GorillaGlue superglue gel) and stick the post into the hole. Let it dry. You can attach the other post in the meantime. Once the glue is completely dry, you can begin the next step: reinforcing your post with UV epoxy resin. Never start the epoxy if the glue isn't dry yet; it will look unsightly.

In the following photo series, we'll show you how to strengthen the back of your earring using a skewer and UV epoxy resin. Ideally, the UV epoxy should be cured under the strongest UV lamp possible (we use 54 watts) and left until it's fully cured (sometimes 10 minutes or longer). If you don't have a lamp or UV resin yet, your post will already be more secure thanks to the glue and the hollow than if you simply glue it on. If you don't have a cordless drill or if creating the hollow isn't possible, gluing the post down and finishing it with UV resin is a better option than simply gluing it on.

Now that you have super strong posts on your earrings, all that's left to do is attach the jump rings and the charm. Here's a photo series showing you how, but we actually think this is the easiest and most enjoyable step because after that, your earrings are FINISHED!

PS: You don't need to varnish or coat polymer clay earrings with resin, but you can of course do so for extra shine or to enhance the effect.