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)

  1. 1

    Draw your design on a piece of paper. (Excuse the crappy pictures. The camera and I hate each other...)

  2. 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.

  3. 3

    Draw your design the actual size you want your earrings and cut it out.

  4. 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. 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.

  6. 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.

  7. 7

    Cut a very thin strip of a large (or at least long) piece of leather.

  8. 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. 9

    Add jump rings to the snail shells, through the drilled hole.

  10. 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.

  11. 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.

  12. 12

    Get your seed beads and earring hooks.

    I added 5 white beads to a jump ring and put that on to the hooks.

  13. 13

    Hang your earring onto the beaded jump ring with the hook and voila: finished!