Polymer Clay Stud Earrings Tutorial

I don't wear earrings on a regular basis. I wear my long earrings for special occasions, but otherwise my ears are bare and boring. But, for some reason, I had a thought that I wanted daily wear earrings and came up with these clay studs. They are fun and not overly complicated to make.

Materials Needed:

• polymer clay (Fimo or Sculpey work great. I use Fimo)
• gloss polymer clay glaze
• small brush
• 6mm posts (or if you have metal allergies try titanium posts)
• rubber or metal backs (if the don't come with the posts)
• X-Acto knife
• ceramic tile(s) (They are maybe 10 cents a piece at a home improvement store)
• cylindrical rolling implement (I chose a glue stick!)
• round clay cutter (I cut the metal eraser holder off the back of a pencil. It's a perfect size)
• super glue gel, or E6000 (if you've read any of my previous posts where I reference toxic chemicals, I avoid anything that says it causes cancer or needs ventilation. E6000 needs lots of ventilation, so I went with the super glue.)

Begin by cutting pieces of your clay and stack together. Roll the clay out on your ceramic tile. The clay crumbles a little until you work it enough to soften it. I work the clay until I find patterns that I like. I flatten the clay, then roll it into a cylinder like the 6th picture. I cut the roll in half, place the pieces next to each other and then roll out again. I repeat this until something tickles my fancy. 

Somehow, the greenish color got lost in my rolling, and cutting. I decided I like the white and black lines and busted out my little metal eraser holder. 

Stamp into the clay and wiggle a little as you pull the metal circle up so the clay doesn't get stuck in the metal. Once you have all of your clay circles cut, pull the excess clay off the tile. I use the blade of my X-Acto knife to pick out the small pieces between the circles. I work with the clay on the ceramic tile so that I don't have to touch the clay circles and risk putting fingerprints on them or deforming them before putting them in the oven. 

The nice thing about the ceramic tiles is that you can put them in the oven and not need to dirty any pans or whatever else people use to bake things...

Once the circles are baked, they don't need long to cool. Just don't forget that the tiles are still hot, even though the clay is touchable. You are ready to glue your studs together. I like to stick my 6mm posts into a scrap of cork board so that stand upright, but you can do whatever works best for you. 

Place a little glue on either the post pad or the clay circle back and put them together. If you use the super glue, your can move to the next step right away, but if you use the E6000, you need to give the studs longer to dry. I'm pretty sure E6000 recommends a 24 hour dry time...but double check that if you use it. 

Once your glue sets, use the polymer clay glaze and a small brush to give your studs a shine. You can either apply multiple thin coats of glaze, or do what I do and blob some glaze on the surface and let it dry over night. 

The glaze will look milky for a while as it dries if you use my glazing method. I worried that I screwed up my earrings at first when the milkiness didn't go away for a while, but adequate dry time fixed it. As you can see from the last photo, the studs have a nice shine and are ready to wear. 

Let me know if you have any comments or questions on how to make these earrings.