https://www.cutoutandkeep.net/projects/natures-earrings • Posted by Maladignia
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.
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.
Draw your design on a piece of paper. (Excuse the crappy pictures. The camera and I hate each other...)
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.
Draw your design the actual size you want your earrings and cut it out.
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.
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.
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.
Cut a very thin strip of a large (or at least long) piece of leather.
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.
Add jump rings to the snail shells, through the drilled hole.
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.
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.
Get your seed beads and earring hooks. I added 5 white beads to a jump ring and put that on to the hooks.
Hang your earring onto the beaded jump ring with the hook and voila: finished!