Shrink Plastic and Wire Earrings Tutorial

If you are familiar with my jewelry, you may have noticed by now that I rarely use beads, if ever. I love to incorporate color into my designs, but I try to do it in a new way. I try to use different materials like nail polish, alcohol ink, liquid polymer clay, and now illustration markers. It's cool to see how many unconventional materials I can use to make jewelry. 

For this pair of earrings, I used shrink plastic film, colored with Blick brand illustration markers. These are comparable to Prismacolor markers, but are a little bit cheaper. Illustration markers are primarily alcohol based. You can use Copic as well, but my goodness those are spendy things! Or bottles of Adirondack alcohol ink and a brush would work. Oh and sharpies! I can't forget about those. 

Materials Needed:

• clear shrink film plastic
• scissors and/or paper cutters (like guillotine cutters)
• hole punch (standard three ring binder paper punch size)
• alcohol based markers or ink (Copic, Prismacolor, Blick, Sharpie, Adirondack, etc.)
• 18 gauge wire
• 8 jump rings (you can make them yourself with the wire and tools)
• wire cutter
• round nose pliers
• flat nose pliers
• earring posts with 4mm pads (Or french hook ear wires if you want to eliminate a step)
• super glue/super glue gel/E6000 glue (whichever you prefer)

To begin, cut your desired shapes out of the shrink plastic. I wanted to use long rectangular shapes. When you bake the shrink plastic, it reduces to about 20% of the original size. I did some guess work when cutting my shapes. I cut strips of the plastic, wide enough to fit a standard hole punch with a little extra plastic on the sides. I would say my longest shapes were three inches or less in length and 3/4 inch or less in width. 

I punched holes in each rectangle and then cut irregular angles from the tops of the shapes with my scissors so the shapes wouldn't be so boxy. And sorry about the flash reflection in the pictures. The lighting in my work room was not bright enough to turn off the flash.

Next, I took my illustration markers and just started doodling.

I used tinfoil to line a baking sheet and placed all of my doodled plastics on it. The directions said to bake at 250 degrees for 3 to 5 minutes. It's kind of fun to stare into the oven while the plastic shrinks. There's nothing wrong with a grown adult sitting cross-legged on the floor, staring into the oven. Silly? Yes. Wrong? No.

As you can kind of see from the last picture. The designs shrunk nicely, and the marker became more saturated and intense. The green pieces are my favorite.

Next, I made the swirly wire designs for the studs. Using 18 gauge wire and your round nose pliers, twist the wire tightly until it is wider than the post pad. I usually twist with the flat nose pliers for a better grip. Snip your wire with your wire cutter and then create a loop at the end with your round nose pliers.

Repeat this for the second piece.

If you want, you can pound the design with a chasing hammer and bench block for a flatter look, but that's totally optional.

Take your glue of choice and place a little drop on your post pad. Stick the posts to one side of your spiral designs and allow to dry according to your glue's directions. The super glue gel sets up in less than 15 minutes.

Using the cap of my super glue and more 18 gauge wire, I formed a circle for the next part of the earrings. 

Once you form the circle, twist one end with your round nose pliers to make a loop, then cut your wire from the spool. Twist the other end of the wire to make another loop like the sixth picture. I curled it into the circle. Repeat this for the second piece. 

Now, you will need your eight jump rings. You can make them yourself by following the pictures below, but you can also buy them if you want. 

Now you are ready to assemble your pieces. Using your flat nose and round nose pliers, open and attach the jump rings to your plastic pieces and connect them to the circle design. Then use the last jump ring to connect your stud spiral to the top loop of your circle design.  

There you have it. A nice pair of dangle earrings. The plastic pieces sound kind of cool when they click together as you wear them. If you have questions or comments about this tutorial, please let me know! I would love to hear from you.