5 Ways To Use Polymer Clay (Creative/Aesthetic) Earrings, Hair Clips, Wall Pocket And More!

Hey guys it's megan, so i've been seeing people make polymer clay, earrings all over tick tock lately and while i was cleaning out my craft room, i realized that i have a ton of polymer clay left over. So in today's video i'll be showing you five easy. Diys you can make with polymer clay, but before we get started, i want to give a quick shout out to today's video sponsor skillshare skillshare is an online learning community, with thousands of classes for creative and curious people. They have classes on all sorts of topics. Like illustration, graphic design, photography, animation and more skillshare classes are a great way to keep yourself occupied during your free time. It'S less than ten dollars per month with an annual subscription. I just took a class called productivity habits that stick using time theming by mike vardy and, as you may have noticed, my productivity in terms of posting videos has not been going so well. So i look to this class for some inspiration in the class. He talks about giving each day a theme and creating three main priorities for yourself to finish each day. It really inspired me to sit down and create my own schedule. If you're looking for inspiration, the first 1000 people to click, the link in my description will get a free trial of skillshare's premium membership. So with all that being said, let's just get into the video. The first idea that i have for you guys, is to use the clay to make hair clips. Besides the polymer clay you'll also need these alligator clips. I got these on amazon a few years ago and they came in a pack of 100 and you know i probably have about 95 left for a basic hair clip just roll out a piece of clay. I made mine pretty thin, but thick enough that it wouldn't break place your clip on top of the clay and use a blade to cut a rectangle around it, smooth it out and it's ready to bake. I made a couple different hair clip designs for this one. I rolled out some tan clay cut out. A rectangle like before then used a dotting tool to add texture to the clay. If you don't have a dotting tool, you can try using the head of a pen instead. Next i made a marble clip. I mixed up. Two shades of blue clay and rolled each one into a snake. I twisted them together, folded it in half twisted it again and repeated. I smushed it all into a ball and rolled it out and again same thing put the clip on top cut around it and you're ready to bake. I really like this next one just like before i rolled out the clay and cut out a rectangle. I took the clay that was left over and rolled it out into a long thin snake. Then i covered the clay rectangle with some translucent liquid sculpey. This is essentially liquid clay and it acts as a glue to help the pieces of clay stick together. You can also mix it with hard and clay to make it softer. I put the clay snake on top forming it into a sort of squiggle type thing. It'S one of those things. That'S pretty self-explanatory if you watch the video, but i can't really put it into words for some reason: anyways once i reach the end, i cut off the excess clay. If you have clay cutters, they can also make fun clips. I made this moon one by combining white granite and black clay. I rolled each one into a snake and twisted them together to marble it just like before i rolled that out and used the clay cutters to create phases of the moon. I used the circle for the center cut about a quarter off for the next two then cut a circle in half for the crescent moon. I cut out a circle and used the teardrop shape cutter to make the crescent shape. I cut out a rectangle from some black clay like before, put some tls on top and place the moons on once i had all my hair clips made, i put them in the oven at 275 degrees for 15 minutes, like it said in the instructions. You could also decorate your clips by drawing on them after you bake them. I made a plain white, rectangle and added spots with a black pasta pen to make this cow print design. I used the same pasta pen to create this grid pattern. To finish the clips, i used some e6000 glue to attach an alligator clip to the back. When that was dry, i used an old paintbrush to seal the clay with some uv resin. If you don't have resin, there are plenty of other ways to seal your clay. Sculpey makes a glaze specifically for polymer clay or you could use polyurethane and you don't have to seal the clips. If you don't want to, i just thought it would be a nice touch. I used a scrap piece of cardboard to hold the clips, while i painted on the resin when you're done, you can clean the resin off your brush by rinsing it in the sink, then swirling it around in some acetone nail polish remover. So here's how my finished clips turned out. This is one of my favorite things that i made in this video. I bought the clips back when those like bethany mota bows were a thing like. I don't know if anyone else was around for that, but i'm glad that i found a way to use the rest of them. One of the most popular ways to use polymer clay right now is to make earrings, but most people make dangly earrings and those are cute. But my earlobes are super small and i can't really wear them because they hurt. So i decided to make myself a few pairs of studs. I used some of the leftover clay snakes to make these knot. Earrings. All you do is tie the clay into a knot, pulling it as tight as you can without breaking it. This might take a few tries, so don't get discouraged if you don't get it right away, cut off the ends of the knot and you're ready to bake. I also made some earrings using those small clay cutters. I used the circle and the teardrop shaped cutter to make another crescent moon and cut out a star from the extra marbled clay. Then i made some of those trendy rainbow earrings that are in like random colors. I rolled out snakes from dark blue white light, blue and granite clay. I made a super tiny curved shape with the granite clay and wrapped each of the other colors around it. Until i had a rainbow and again i made two of these - i baked the earrings then used some more e6000 glue to attach some earring posts. I got these ones from joanne fabrics, but i ended up ordering more from amazon, since there were only like four pairs in this pack. When the glue dried, i sealed the earrings with some uv resin as well. I poked them through a piece of scrap cardboard to make it a little easier and here's how my finished earrings turned out. I actually just re-pierced my ears. I had them done when i was younger, but they closed up at some point and i never bothered redoing them. I was going through my old earrings and i forgot just how expensive these things are. If you look for a sale or use a coupon, you can get a multi-pack of clay for about eight dollars at the craft, store and 200 earring posts for nine dollars on amazon and depending on what you choose to seal it with and whether you need to Buy any clay tools or anything making earrings yourself can be really cost effective. Now that we've made all these earrings, we need a place to put them. I always like making things that are both pretty and functional. So i made this clay earring holder for this project. I combined some white and silver clay to create a marble effect. I rolled each color of clay into a snake and twisted the clay together until i had something that i liked. I ended up adding a little more white clay, since i thought there was a little bit too much silver. I rolled my clay out into a slab that was about a quarter inch thick. Then i grabbed a bowl to use as a template and cut around it. With an exacto knife, i used a toothpick to make holes for the earrings i poked the toothpick through the clay and smoothed out any excess clay that got pushed to the back. I repeated this quite a few more times going about two thirds of the way down the circle. I flipped the clay over to the backside and made sure everything was smoothed out. Then i baked the clay on top of a bread pan, so the bottom part could curve down and it would hold its shape. But when i took it out of the oven i kind of had a problem see once the earrings were in the organizer. It didn't really want to stand up, so i used the excess clay that i cut off earlier as sort of a counterweight. I didn't really want this, like random ball of clay sitting on the back, though so i used it to make a small pinch pot. This is just like it sounds you push down on the center of a ball of clay and pinch the edges. Until you have a little bowl shape, i figured i could use this to store rings. I also baked a snake of extra white clay to add some more weight to the back of the organizer. I put those in the oven, then stuck them on with some e6000 glue and here's how my finished earring organizer turned out. Let me know in the comments: do you have your ears pierced something that i used to make all the time when i was first starting with polymer clay? Was these polymer clay pens? I'Ve never been a huge jewelry person, but it seems like i always need a pen. Besides clay you'll need a pen that won't melt in the oven. I always use these bic round. Stick pens first take the ink out of the pen. It shouldn't be too hard to get out. I used one of those alligator clips from earlier to help me, but pliers or tweezers should work too set the ink aside for later, preferably in a cup or somewhere, where it won't like tip over and get ink everywhere. The next step is optional, but it helps take a piece of parchment or wax paper and wrap it around the pen to measure how much clay you'll need to cover it cut this piece out to use as a guide. You can put any design that you want on your pen if you're stuck just google polymer clay, pens and a ton of designs should come up. I made a terrazzo style pen. I rolled out a slab of white clay. That was a little bit bigger than my template. Then i rolled out a few different colors of clay into snakes and cut them into small pieces about the size of sprinkles, which there is a question for you. What do you call these things? I'Ve always called them. Sprinkles but i know that some people call them jimmy's. I don't know why, but i feel, like i've heard people debate about that topic, so leave your opinion down below once you have a whole bunch of these little pieces of clay place them on top of the white clay. This part was a little bit time consuming. So you know just relax put on a tv show. I just got a new phone plan, and so now i have hulu disney, plus and netflix and i'll probably cancel my netflix, because i feel like three streaming. Services is a little excessive but comment any recommendations that you have from any of those sites down below. I just finished watching sister sister on netflix, i used to watch that in reruns all the time as a kid, but i have never seen it the whole way through. So that was exciting, but i always just end up going back and watching things that i've seen a million times like full house. I keep like. Why do i watch that on hulu? I have all the dvds like. I could watch it without all the commercials, but i'm just too lazy anyways, once all those are on there go over the whole thing, with a rolling pin to flatten it out and help the smaller pieces of clay. Stick to the larger one place: the template. On top cut around it and wrap that around the pen bake this according to the package directions and once it's cooled off, you can put the ink back in and that's it you can make these as simple or as complicated as you'd like this last project. Is a bit unconventional, but i thought it was a really cool idea. I started by rolling out some white clay and tracing around that same bowl to create a circle. I wanted it to match the new shower curtain that i just got so i used a flower shaped cookie cutter to cut out shapes from some yellow clay. Then i used blue clay for the center of each flower. I put the flowers on the top half of the clay circle, then flattened them with my rolling pin and to tell you the truth. I, like the flowers a lot better before i flattened them. I should have just made the yellow clay super thin and then used tls to stick them on, but it was a little too late for that at this point, so instead i used a toothpick to push the part between the petals in a little bit to make Them more flower shaped again for the pocket. I rolled out the rest of my blue clay. I took that same bowl and cut around it, so i had a half circle. Then i used a ruler to straighten out the top edge to make the pocket hold its shape. I crumpled up some aluminum foil. That was about the size that i wanted. The inside of the pocket to be - and my blue clay ended up being a little bit too small, so i rolled out the excess and placed it along the curved edge. I flattened everything out and made sure that it was super stuck together. Then i placed it back on. I used some tls to help. Stick the blue clay to the edges of the white clay. This will just make sure that it doesn't come apart after you bake it. I smoothed everything out as best as i could, but i think that i made the foil piece a little bit too big. If i did this again, i think i'd make the inside of the pocket a little smaller after everything was smoothed out. I cut off any excess blue clay again using the bowl as a guide. I used my circle cookie cutter to make two holes in the top to hang. It then baked the clay when it was out of the oven and cooled off. I removed the foil from the pocket. I only had this thin string, so i tied three pieces of it to one of the holes with a triple knot. Braided it then i tied a triple knot on the other hole. I cut the excess string from the knots and secured them with a little e6000 glue, so they wouldn't come undone and here's how the finished project turned out. I hung my organizer in my bathroom to hold my toothbrush and toothpaste, but you could use this as a planter, a pen holder or to hold really anything that you want. So thank you guys so so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed this video if you did make sure to give it a thumbs up and subscribe for more videos. Just like this one and again thank you to skillshare for sponsoring this video don't forget the first 1000 people to click. The link in my description will get a free trial of skillshare premium. My merch my website and all my social media will be linked down below. I love you guys so so much and i will see you guys later. Bye,