Crafty Tuesday - #1 Gothic Lolita Bracelet and Earring set

Sorry for the 1 day delay!!.. But anyway, for the very 1st post for Crafty Tuesday, I'll be sharing a tutorial on making a bracelet and earring set out of air-dry clay roses, ala gothic-lolita style.



Materials needed:

Makin's Clay - Black (You can experiment with other types of clay)
Perfect Pearl - Blue Smoke (You can experiment with other colors and brands of pigment powders)
Silver eyepins - I used 8
Silver jumprings - I used about 70
Silver headpins - I used 7
Silver Clasp - 1
Silver earring findings - 2

Instructions:


1. Grab and knead a small piece of the clay.
2. Take a tiny bit of this kneaded clay and roll it into a snake, about 2 cm long and 3 to 4 mm wide in diameter.
3. Flatten this snake.
4. Roll up this flatten piece like so. This will be the heart of the rose.



5. Take another 3 small piece of clay and form each of them into a tear shape. Each is about 7 to 8mm long.
6. Flatten these 3 pieces.
7. Take 1 flattened piece and wrap it round the rose's heart like so.
8. Push down the top edge a little to form the petal like so.



9. Take another flattened piece, and wrap it round the heart, slightly overlapping the 1st petal.
10. Do the same thing for the 3rd petal. This will slightly overlap the 2nd and 1st petals.



11. Take another 3 pieces of clay, slightly bigger than each piece in step 5 (Refer to picture 11 for a size comparison between each piece and the partial rose you've done so far), and form them into tear shapes.
12. Flatten these 3 pieces. These will form the outer petals of the rose.
13. Wrap one flattened piece around the rose. Try to place it between 2 inner petals like so.
14. Pinch the center of the edge of this outer petal like so.(You can shape this petal a little more to make it more realistic)



15 & 16. Do the same thing for the other 2 flattened pieces. You'll get a completed rose by step 16.
17. Use a scissors and trim off the back of the rose.
18. Flatten this trimmed back slightly. Now will be a good time to insert an eyepin through the back of this rose. (Refer to picture 20 to get an idea what I mean)



19. Use a paint brush and brush on Perfect Pearl for each rose. You could seal the powdered pigment in with a satin or matte sealer.
20. How the roses look with eyepins. I've made 6 small roses for the bracelet and 2 slightly bigger ones for the earrings. You could make more of the smaller roses if you have a bigger-sized wrist.



21. Connect 2 jump rings to one of the loops of a rose like so.
22. Take another 2 jump rings, and loop through the 2 jump rings you have connected to the rose earlier like so. (Ignore that weird filigree-looking thing that's attached to the back of the rose... It's a silly mistake I'd made. It should be an eye-pin in your case.)
23. Take 2 more jump rings; and connect them to the 2 jump rings you've attached in step 22 and to another rose like so.
24. Continue in this fashion until you have connected 5 roses or any number of roses that will give you a good fit (Ignore the 6th rose in this picture. I redid the bracelet, doing away with the filigree like backing.. Used eye-pins instead.)


I finish this bracelet by attaching a chain of jump rings to one end with some dangling beads (use a headpin to string the beads together for each dangle) and a rose. On the other end, I attached 2 jump rings through the same loop, another 2 jump rings through these 2 jump rings, and finally a clasp. (Wore this to work today.. LOL.. The Perfect Pearl really sparkle under sunlight!)



For the earrings, you take 1 earring finding and attach 2 jump rings through the loop of this finding. Then, take another 2 jump rings and attach them through the 2 previous jump rings. Next, attach the rose to these 2 jump rings. I then connect a chain of 4 jump rings with some dangling beads. Do exactly the same for the 2nd earring.

There you have it! A gothic-lolita bracelet and earring set!