Pumpkin earrings for a cute trick-or-treat costume, and to wear at Thanksgiving dinner:
Fall is coming so today’s theme post is about pumpkin beads! This particular sculptural polymer clay bead is made in three parts. (1) The pumpkin; (2) The leaf; and (3) The vine. Each can be stacked to create dimension and movement.
The plump little pumpkin is shaped and given ‘pumpkin wrinkles’ to make it look realistic. A toothpick works great for putting in the lines. Then to accent the creases and give the pumpkin beads a ‘fresh picked from the field’ look, they are antiqued using a dark green artist acrylic paint.
The leaves are created using a special leaf cane made with two different shades of green Premo Sculpey clay. Thick slices of the cane were cut and baked over a chopstick to give the curved shape. This way when they are stacked on the pumpkin, the leaves drape over instead of stick straight out.
A snake of clay is twisted to look like a vine and baked on a bed of cornstarch. Always make sure there is a little loop in the vine so it can be threaded onto the earring wire.
Creating sculptural beads in separate parts makes it much easier to sand, buff and polish the individual items. Also, these parts fitted together loosely in the final jewelry piece, provides a nice sense of movement or fluidity.
All three components, the pumpkin bead, the leaf bead and the vine are threaded onto a head pin to create the dangle for a pair of earrings. A loop is made at the top of the pin so it can hang from the ear wire.
These polymer clay pumpkin earrings are simple to make and fun to wear! Leaving off the jack-o-lattern faces that you often see on pumpkin beads, allows this project to “fit in” throughout the entire Fall or Autumn season. Not just for Halloween costume jewelry.
So tell me, would it have to be Halloween for you to wear pumpkins dangling from your ears? Or would you feel comfortable also adding them to your regular Fall jewelry collection?
I love them. What was the color ratio for the orange?
I didn’t include the Zinnia orange clay recipe in the article above because I’m just now putting together a new recipe card system for you guys. You’ll be able to download and print the recipes on 4″x6″ or 3″x5″ cards that’ll fit nicely in a storage box for easy referencing. Would something like this be helpful for you?
WOW, I WOULD LOVE YOUR COLOR RECIPES the file card size.
I use the recipes constantly. Thanks so much.
That is exactly what I was hoping for!!
I love the pumpkin earrings. I get the small color recipe size by saving it to “my pictures”. It allows me to print four recipes on one page which automatically reduces the size. Mine fit in a baby wipes box. Your video and recipes newsletter makes my Fridays a treat!! Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts Sandra. I’m so glad to hear your are enjoying the weekly color recipe cards.
By the way, for anyone who wants to see some other “Halloween Earrings” there is some video clips of my Luna Lovegood Radish Earrings in a Harry Potter Halloween Project I posted today. The link by my name will take you to that post.