Nature's Earrings
Something to go with a Gaia-look
Posted by Maladignia
About
I was organizing my collection of beads when I came across a collection of snail shells and got the idea to turn them into earrings.
I already have a necklace with a pretty orange shell on it, these earrings will complete the look.
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You Will Need (11 things)
- 2 snail Shells , empty
- Hot Glue Gun
- Some Jump Ring(s)
- Scrap Leather
- 2 Earring Hooks
- 10 white Seed Beads
- Jewellery Pliers
- Scissors
- Needle & Thread
- 1 Mm Drill Bit
- Drill
Steps (13 steps, 40 minutes)
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1
Draw your design on a piece of paper. (Excuse the crappy pictures. The camera and I hate each other...)
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2
Get your scrap leather and decide which colors to use. I picked blue and green.
This collection mainly consists of samples given to me by a fellow student, years ago. They are mainly furniture samples and scraps from old couches or bags.
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3
Draw your design the actual size you want your earrings and cut it out.
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4
Use the paper design to draw the design onto your leather and cut it out.
You can see the line that I followed for the fringes. -
5
I had a second piece of leather to cut, so I cut it out from the paper and used that to get the leather shapes.
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6
Sew the two pieces together the way you want them to hang.
I had planned to sew around the whole green piece but ended up making just one stitch. It's a bit more playful this way and lots less work.
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7
Cut a very thin strip of a large (or at least long) piece of leather.
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8
Get your snail shells.
I already had these lying around. This is how they are prepared for jewelry making:
- Find an empty snail shell that is still intact. Clean it out with water.
- Fill it up with glue from a glue gun. This makes them less fragile.
- When that has hardened out use a drill size 1 to drill a hole near the edge of the shell, through the glue. This is tricky because the edges can still break, so go slowly. -
9
Add jump rings to the snail shells, through the drilled hole.
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10
Fasten the thin leather strip to the jump rings in the shells. I added a wooden bead for decoration.
It helps to cut a tapered end to your leather strip so it will go through the bead with more ease.
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11
Sorry, no picture of this.
Prick a hole in your blue leather piece with the needle, on the top, where your earring hook will come.
Add a jump ring through it. (This requires some wriggling)
Tie the leather strip with the shell on it to the jump ring.
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12
Get your seed beads and earring hooks.
I added 5 white beads to a jump ring and put that on to the hooks.
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13
Hang your earring onto the beaded jump ring with the hook and voila: finished!