Witches Hat Earrings

With Halloween approaching, I wanted to make something fun to go with my Halloween Costume… and what better way to add to a costume than jewellery! Makin's Clay® is lightweight and durable to make fun themed earrings and jewellery pieces. Any guesses to what I am dressing up as? 

Materials:

Makin’s Clay®- Black, Plum Wine and Yellow

Makin's Clay® Roller or Clay Machine 

Makin’s Professional® Cutting Mat 

Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay Extruder®

Makin's® Texture Sheet Set C - Weave

Makin's® Clay Tool Set - Chisel

Clay Blade

Circle cutter 3cm diameter

Triangle cutters (optional) 

2 Micro square cutters, one approx. 1cm and 0.8cm 

Micro Circle cutter approx. 1cm

Tacky glue 

Black coated jump ring 1.2cm

Surgical steel earring posts 0.5cm

Pin Vice Drill

Jewellery pliers 

Instructions:

Roll out your Makin's Clay® black to the thickest setting on your clay machine, then cut two, 3cm circles. Smooth edges of the circle with your fingers. Lay aside and cut two triangles to fit each circle. I used a diamond cutter and then used the same circle cutter to do a curved cut in the middle of the diamond, then trimmed it to fit the circle. 

Lay the triangles on top the circle bases, use a touch of water or tacky glue to attach them.

Extrude Makin’s Clay® - Plum wine with the help of Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay Extruder® and the single circle extruder disk, to make the witches hat ribbon. 

Place the strip of clay around the base of the point hat tip with water or tacky flue. Smooth the edges down slightly.

To make the witches hat buckle, roll out your Makin's Clay® Yellow to the 3rd thickest setting on your clay machine. Cut a little square using the larger of the 2 square cutters, then in the centre of that square place the smaller square cutter and cut out the square, leaving a square outline use as a buckle.

  

Place the put line square onto the hat ribbon using tacky glue or water, I placed them a little off-centre to add interest. 

Roll out your Makin's Clay® Plum Wine to the thickest setting on your clay machine, then cut a 1cm circle, using a micro circle cutter. Smooth edges of the circle with your fingers. At this point, you can put a hole towards the bottom of the circle and towards the top of the Witches hat point, for later on jump ring attachment. or I used a pin vice drill, later on, once dry to put the holes in.

Set aside the Hats and circles to dry for 24 hours. 

This next step is optional.

Roll out your Makin's Clay® Plum Wine to 3rd thinnest setting on your clay machine, then Lightly dust, dusting powder (cornstarch) over the clay. Place the Makin's Clay® Texture Sheet Set C - Weave on top of the clay, using your fingers press and roll over the texture sheet, pressing the impression into the clay. Does not have to be a perfect impression right around, it is to give an organic feel.

Use the same circle cutter used to cut the base of the hat, cut a circle out to place on the bottom of the hat base. Adhere it with some tacky glue. Smooth edges with your fingertips.

Allow to dry for 24 hours. 

Place holes using the pin vice drill (if already haven’t) drill holes in towards the bottom of the circle and towards the top of the witches hat point. To finish the earrings off, attach jump rings to attach the hat and circle. Then glue earring posts to the back of the circles.

Hope you have fun making and wearing these Witches Hat Earrings!

Happy Halloween! 

"Cute Scary" Little Pumpkins

Do you like Halloween?  Me too, but not too scary, rather cute scary. I think these little pumpkins are perfect.

Supplies

About 30 gr (1 ounce) of white Makin's Clay® for each little pumpkin

Makin's Professional® Clay Texture Set

Ball point tool with a rather small ball

Makin's Professional® Cutting Mat

Acrylic paint

Materials

I started with creating a rolled ball approx 4 cm or 2 ¾ “ diameter. Then I squished it somewhat flat.

For the arm, I made a log, which I made somewhat flat and then cut some fingers. Some have 3 fingers, some have 5 fingers.

Slightly dampen your fingers and  shape the pumpkin's fingers further.

 

I used the clay texture set tool to make a hole where I can insert the little arms.

I also have made the typical pumpkin ridges. For the eyes, I used the professional clay texture set, but this time the tip you can see in the picture below.

I simply twisted it above the mouth and then with the pointy tool I added some nostrils.

I made a long slit for the mouth with the pointy tool and then added either teeth or a tongue.

As some last steps I added a twisted piece to the top and textured the whole pumpkin with the small ballpoint tool.

In the end I had 3 little pumpkins which now had to dry for about 2 days. 

 

 

I used different acrylic paint mainly orange, some yellow a tiny bit of a bronze color, for the body. 

I added patina to the ridges with a flat brush with the some brown as I have used for the little stem at the top.

With some fluorescent color I added some dots to the eyes.

 

Vampire Bats Bracelet

There's still time to whip up this simple little vampire bat bracelet for Halloween!  This simple project would be fun for kids to make too.

Materials:

Makin's Clay® - Black
Makin's® Halloween Cutter Set - Bat
Makin's® Tool Set
Jump rings, head pins, closure
Jewelry pliers
DecoArt® Dazzling Metallics™ - Red
DecoArt® Metallic Lustre™ - Lightening Black
Cloth towel or fabric for texturing
Black chain

Instructions:

Open black clay and cut off enough from package for the project.  Place the remaining clay in a zipper bag with a damp paper towel or moist towelette for later use.

Roll clay to a little less than 1/4" thick.

I used a towel and gently pressed it into the clay sheet to add a bit of texture (real bats have fuzzy bodies after all...)

Use bat cutter to cut desired number of bats.

Fold one wing inward, and the second wing inward overlapping as shown to create closed wig bats. I made 5 of these, but later decided to use 3 in my bracelet.

Use clay tool to make holes in each wing for the open winged bats.

Insert head pin through center of each closed wing bat body.

Use head pin to add a tiny bit of the red metallic paint to make eyes on each bat.

Let dry 24 hours.

Use jewelry pliers to make loops in pins on either side of the hanging bats.  Trim excess wire.

Add jump rings to the flying bat wings.

Cut small sections of chain (how much will depend on how big you want your bracelet to be).  Working one at a time, put the chain through the large jump rings on the flying bats, fold each section in half, add a tiny jump ring to connect the ends, and then connect to one side of the upside down hanging bats.  Continue until all bats are connected.  Add closure.

I decided my bats needed a bit of highlighting, so I used my finger to apply a light touch of Metallic Lustre to the edges of each bat.

Witches Bat Necklace

Design Team Member Naomi Scarparo recently shared this cute yet creepy bat necklace just in time for Halloween.  Naomi made her necklace with Makin's Clay®.

Halloween Spider Bottle

Design Team Member Bea Grob recently shared this spooky fun altered bottle made 

with Makin's Clay® here on her blog. 

Halloween in a Bottle - Glow in the Dark!

Halloween in a Bottle by Leila Bidler 

For this project you will need:

Makin's Clay® Glow in the dark

Makin's Clay® White

Makin's Clay® Black

(The quantity of clay depends on the dimensions of your jar!)

Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®

Makin's Professional® Cutting Mat

Makin's® Basic Tool Set

Glass vial or jar with cork top (any dimension you like)

Clay texture sponge

Black embossing powder

Acrylic Paint black

Small paintbrush

Small deco pebbles

Colored dry deco moss

2 eye pins 

Small jewelry pliers

Instructions:

- In this tutorial we will use the awesome Makin's Clay® GLOW IN THE DARK to create a little ghost scene in a jar - the perfect decoration for Halloween!

- Take some black Makin's Clay® and roll it thru the widest setting of your Makin's Professional® Ultimate Clay Machine®. Turn it 90° and run it thru the second setting. Now run it thru the first setting again with a texture sponge to get a nice deep textured base for our little Halloween / Graveyard scene.

- Using the jar itself or the top, whatever is more comfortable to you, cut out a disc of this textured sheet of clay, since during drying it will shrink a little bit it will fit perfectly on the bottom of your jar once it is dry.

- Mix some white clay with a tiny amount of black clay you can always add more to make it darker and add some black embossing powder to give it the look of granite.

- Roll out the clay on the thickest setting or your clay machine and cut off a long stripe, then fold it in half, now you have a piece of clay that is twice the thickest setting of your clay machine. Using the tools from your Clay Basic Tool Set cut out the shape of a basic headstone.

- Using a paintbrush or the tip of your finger moisten the base of the headstone with some water and wrap the stripe around it so the headstone can stand up by itself (photo 007)

- Make some markings in the stone, draw a cross, some symbols or the classic "R.I.P." on the headstone and put it aside for now.

 

- Let's make a Glow in the dark skull now! Take your Glow in the Dark Makin's Clay® and make a small ball, pinch the bottom part to form an egg shape.

- Using the small tip of your tool poke two roundish holes for the eye sockets and two small ones for the nose.

- Cut off the bottom sides to make a sharp jaw line and draw one horizontal and 5 vertical lines for the teeth.

-Put a drop of water on the black base and add the headstone and the tiny skull so they will stick while it all dries.

- Now we need a little ghost! Using the Glow in the Dark Makin's Clay® form an egg shape and pinch the sides to form two "arms."

- Insert an eye pin on the top of the head and carefully close the hole around it. It will get permanently stuck once your clay dries.

 

- Let everything dry for a day.

- When everything is dry use some black acrylic paint on the headstone, the skull and paint a little face on the ghost:

- Take the second eye pin and insert it in the bottom center of the jar lid. Since it is cork you just need to push a little, no need to drill holes or use glue.

- Suspend your little ghost from that eye pin, if he hangs too low, just push the eye pin further into the cork lid - the fun part is that using two joined eye pins the ghost will move if you just touch the jar.

- Now put the base with the headstone and the skull on the bottom of your jar, use some white clay to glue it in and sprinkle some small decor stones and colored dried moss all over. Decor moss comes in all colors, I used light green and orange, it is a very soft material that you can easily pick a part with your fingers or cut with a pair of scissors. 

Want to see the ghost in motion?  

https://www.instagram.com/p/B2Y4AxeoBV3/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

Expose to a light source then turn off the lights and enjoy!