Create Your OWN MOLDS and Your Own POLYMER CLAY EARRINGS

Since I was a little girl I have liked jewelry and since last year I started a jewelry business with polymer clay, I like to create earrings for special occasions and in this instructable, I will show you how I do to create all kinds of figures and make them always come out the same size and shape (creating my own silicone molds)

In these links, you can see some things that I have done for selling:

www.facebook.com/Lina-María-Arte-y-Jolería-128479...

www.instagram.com/linamaria.arteyjoyeria/

• Polymer clay
• Cardboard
• Tape
• Silicone Rubber and its Catalyst
• Disposable plastic cups
• Stick to mix the silicone
• Jewelry fittings
• Nail glue

1. The first thing I do is to create with polymer clay the figures I want to reproduce later with a silicone mold. (The colors do not matter in this point, just the shapes)

2. Bake the figures according to the instructions from the polymer clay you buy. (Mine were baked for 15 minutes at 135 °C)

1. To create the mold, a cardboard box is made. It must be taken into account that the pieces made in the previous step will be placed inside, and each one must be separated from the others by at least 1 cm.

2. In this case I cut a 4 x 4 cm square for the bottom and 4 4 x 2 cm rectangles for the sides of the box

3. Join them with tape

4. Have the little box

1. Put nail glue to each of the figures created in the first step.

2. Glue the figures to the bottom of the box.

To make the silicone mold, follow the instructions given by the supplier of the materials. In this case, the packaging said that the silicone should be mixed with 5% catalyst.

1. Pour silicone into a disposable cup (approximately what will fit in the box made in the previous step) and weigh it.

2. Calculate 5% of the weight of the silicone and pour the catalyst into a disposable cup.

3. Mix both (silicone and catalyst)

4. Pour the mixture into the cardboard box and give it small strokes to release the air that remains inside. (this is noticeable by the bubbles coming out on the surface of the silicone)

5. Let dry (I waited 24 hours)

1. After allowing it to dry, open the cardboard box.

2. And carefully lift the mold.

There are figures that have many details and only the first shapes are achieved with the mold but later it is necessary to continue working on them like these Rudolphs that I made for Christmas.

1. Prepare the material (polymer clay) to be used (I used two different shades of brown)

2. Fill the part of the mold with the light brown with pressure.

3. Fill with pressure on the polymer clay the area that goes with dark brown (the antlers of the reindeer)

4 - 5. Carefully remove the figure from the mold.

6. Repeat these steps until you have the desired number of shapes.

To complete the Rudolphs it was necessary to do some details.

1. The eyes, for this I cut small white circles.

2. Then I put them on the heads of the reindeers

3. I added black circles (smaller than the white ones)

4. And put smaller white ones on top of them.

5. Then a red circle for the nose

6. And finally I created the shape of each one's mouth.

1. Bake the figures.

2. Take them out of the oven.

3. With nail glue the jewelry fittings are attached.

4. Let dry

There are other figures that do not need the creation of new details after using a mold, for example, these hearts with marble-like texture.