Beaded Earrings Tutorial

The tutorial about fruit beads left something out about our craft making adventures of that day. Today I want to share what did not show but made: LOVELY flower beads and a beaded earrings tutorial.

I’ve made them into peaceful earrings by adding a peace symbol and few other charms and beads.

How to Make the Clay Flower Beads

Step 1. Use self-drying clay. Eg. Apoxie Sculpt for professional beads, or Crayola’s cheaper but larger quality version of self-drying clay for kids.

Step 2. Shape the flowers with a tooth pick, fingers and nails.

Step 3. Place a short loop eye pin

into the top of the flower and let it dry a bit.

Step 4. Then paint each flower bead. You’ll need red, yellow and white paint. Red with a tat of yellow and white makes the color for the flower petals. White and white/yellow makes the flower heart. Let your painted clay flower charms dry.

Step 5. When dry, apply a layer of red glitter glue. To make a more durable version, as I said in my other tutorial, acrylics glossy medium is better.Let it dry again.

Beaded Earrings Tutorial

Putting it all together.
When it became time to make the beaded earrings, I could not find my charm making pins. So, I simply made my own, and you can too: It was really easy.

1. Create a circle around your round-nose pliers at the end of metal wire. If need be, shape  it a bit with your regular cutting pliers so that the circle sits evenly on top of the metal wire.

2.  Then, cut a short pin  that’s just the length of each bead.    

Alternatively: simply buy jewelry loop eye pins like these and cut them to size.

3. Dap each pin with a bit of household glue (I’m sure there is better glue than this for this purpose…. see my whole spiel on which glue for what here…) and strung each bead on its own pin.

Let it dry for 1 hour.

4. Look in your bead collection for some complementary beads to add to your earrings. The balls you see in the picture are recycled from a vintage necklace.  They’re plastic, so superlight-weight. The larger peace symbols, made from real coral, adds some ’bulk’, whimsy and helps to develop ‘a statement’. 

For your beaded earrings, just pick 3 or even 4 different beads from your collection that work together well and that you like the look of. Make sure they are not too heavy together, as you’ll have to walk around with them all day.

Add all onto a little circle finding, together with the earring finding, and voila: your first earring is made. Make the second earring the same way but string them in the opposite order onto the ring finding.

And there you have it:

Flower-power clay bead earrings,

that are easy & fun to make and

totally in style!

A Craft You Can Do With Kids

DIY Homemade Earrings to Make

Fruit-shaped Bead Earrings
Crystal Angel Earrings
Crochet Cherry Earrings
Polymer Clay Candy Earrings

And more!

Click here for all kinds of DIY jewelry tutorials, designs and ideas.