"Everyone needs an elephant... or two...." - Earrings made from polymer clay

 More little elephant earrings! This time one pair with pink flowers and one pair with blue flowers. Took me long enough to finish them...

But I'll have to try to take more pictures since it was already a little bit too dark. So here also just a few shots.

But they are just so cute! I made from the original pair I sculpted two tiny molds. These I use to create the basic form and then I sculpt them a little bit more, bake and paint them.

If I manage to take more pictures I may also manage to list them in my shop ;)

On my worktable...

On my worktable right now!

Maybe this needs to be clarified: On a part of my temporary worktable also known as living room table in a lot of piles and boxes lying and standing around. Also the term temporary is used in a very broad definition. It started somewhere and it might end sometimes, that could be called temporary, or not?

I drilled some plastic toys a long time ago. Time to wrap and use them finally! I like miniature animals. They are as weird as they are cute!

I found some old crocheted rings I made years ago. I made a lot of earrings with them and then I got bored of creating them. Now I may be tempted again. Or I may even find some more already finished rings ;)

I also bought a box with copper wash rings. Difficult to get, I had to order them online! Nowadays they are mostly not made from pure copper anymore. 

After annealing I played with texture, oxidised them, polished them again... Aren't they all ebautiful?!

Look at all the pattern made with only two hammers. All the not roundish ones are made with a simple household hammer. My favorite hammer ever!

In my hand you see my absolute number one textured copper ring! The secret? More force, less control ;)

I also can show you a lot of necklace UFOs...

This could also just be a bead assembly for a market ;) But I combined some cermaic beads from Karen Totten with some of my polymer clay beads and a pendant. Actually I love how they work together. Just the worst to come: What kind of chain/string/necklace to add?

This is an older polymer clay pendant I made. I love the bird and the bright blue but until now it was just colelcting dust. So, I had to start somewhere!

I made a pendant from a uglibead headpin made by Julie. I could wrap it after making a double loop! The golden leather and a lot of the czech glass beads are from several Curiosity kits Rebecca is selling at her Curious Bead Shop.

I also started using one of my bird skulls! Oh, I just love all of them! With crackles and metallic spots... 

Here you can see how I actually start: Randomly assembling beads that are just telling me that they belong to each other. I don't know how the elefant jumped into the imade. He was not meant to be there... but you have to see how well he looks on the numinosity bead made by Kimberly (the etched glowing one)! Is there a organic rustic playful style? I don't know but he will stay ;)

Uhm... the picture of the new wings is actually not very good. They reflected the evening sun to well and were still on the paper towel drying. But I made some more! I used one for myself (one of the small ones at the top) and will start adding some of the other to my shop. I was asked for these and so here we go. They will probably also be my last for a long time. I can't stand too much repetition ;)

Tiny elefants and skulls - everyone needs pink flowers! (ear studs)

You see the pink flowers? I think you may guess for whom I made them ;) 

Tiny ear studs... skulls and elefants.

As much as I like cute stuff, it is something I am not enjoying to create as much as my organic, more tribal work. But from time to time even I need to work "in cute". ^^

I especially love the elefants (I also made molds of both of them after sculpting). They are not really difficult to make - under one condition - stop trying to be perfect. They are rough, have fingerprints, are not perfectly shapes... but have a look at this tiny beauty: It doesn't matter! One glance and you see: It is an elefant! (or a skull...)  :)

PS: I even have a small tutorial for skulls here (just don't judge the images to strict... they were taken over two years ago and not the best ^^). 

Blue elefants - earring

I just made some earrings with my elefant, this time in shades of blue and turquois. I have to say I really like how the turned out. I chose dark wire to go for the earhooks. 

I think I'll have to try to make them in a lot of colour variations! Really.. a lot! ^^

I made them with polymer clay (Fimo classic, I really prefer this kind of polymer clay over the softer variants!) and coloured with acrylic paint (lots of layers ^^), sanded and painted again... and a lot of shiny gloss. Really... to use more than four layers is the trick!

In the circus

Maybe it is going to be boring... but again: My new favorites! It is really difficult to choose at the moment which ones to wear! 

Some stripes, a little bit of black smear and stripes in red and cream... create a lovely vintage effect. And hey, elefants! Who can resist elefants?! 

I used crafting paper I got from a friend, while searching through her trash and materials and tools (Oh, I love to go through other work stuff!) I found a little paper punch for these elefants. I punched two elefants in the paper, cut out the circles, glued them on cardboard...

...and used a ink pad for stamping to roll the circles in the ink... and paint the elefants... Don't be carfeul at this step! The result will always look great and the smear effect is (at least in my opinion) important to create the whole effect!

You see, I am going to be a little bit more sophisticated with my paper earrings: I am using now metal for the holes! 

And last but not least: A thin layer of 3D laquer (glue). You can still see how the punched elefants pop out!

Hidden pink!

More earrings using the hidden pink to be suitable for the pink advent calendar ^^ 

This time the dream of pink elefants! 

For the little elefants I made a mold out of air-drying clay. I used an old necklace from my grandmother which consists of a lot of elefant beads (yes, from the time ivory was still used). The beads are very typical in their shape because a friend of me has a very similar necklace (also from her grandmother, necklace seems to be as old as mine). 

The mold I used with fimo / polymer clay and after baking the little elefants were painted with golden / copper acrylic paint.

Black elefant...

Okay, no octopus. No tentacle... hm... at least no real tentacle...?

This stencil is one of my first but I couldn't show it due to "delivery" problems. It was a birthday present for a friend of mine.

I had some problems with the structure / texture of the paint. Not sure why because it never occured again although I did not chance any details in the process... mh...

Mh... next time violett on white fabric...

The different colours are due to the time the pictures were taken... at night / daylight and... I have to confess *blush* without white light correction....