Epoxy Compound Cherry, Strawberry, Blueberry, Tiny Mushroom Earrings #Kids Special

Hello all,

During recent monsoon in my city, we faced water entering into living rooms due to huge rainfall for the year. So i got the opportunity to clean up the rooms and add sealant wherever required.

That is when i handled m-seal, an expoxy compound where it contains 37.5g of resin base and 37.5g of hardener. I should say i played with it well. So was creating small figurines out of it. And found that when they are hardened they are resistant to breaking even when it falls on the ground. This is the main feature i look in my jewelry because people around me know very well and all the faces turn towards me whenever there is a cling/clang sound.

Let me come to the point.

So with this jewelry speed challenge i wanted to make some of my favourite fruit earrings which i find bit costly in showrooms but at the sametime they are quite easily brokeable when they fall on to the ground by mistake...as they are melamine based. At the sametime, epoxy compound is quite cheaper option, not heavy and water resistant.

Components:

Epoxy compound (37.5g of resin base and 37.5g of hardener)

Acrylic paints

Metal wires

Jumprings - gold and silver colour

Earring hooks - gold and silver colour

Tools:

Paint brush

Round nose plier

Cutting plier

Wire cutter

x-acto knife

Utility knife

Tweezers

Burner cleaner tool (optional) - It solved my purpose to make dots and do some sculpting wherever necessary

Pencils

Paper

Polythene sheets

For Safety purpose, to handle epoxy:

Gloves, possibly surgical gloves

I decided to make two cherry (one bit longer than the another) and one hanging green tiny leaf. So here's a rough model before starting the earrings. However, in the final step it changed a bit accordingly.

Length of wire for one cherry would be slightly(1-2mm) longer than the other. This difference would make it look nearly natural in the end product.

With this step, we make the base wire ready to add hooks to it. Make sure the metal wires you choose are rust-free.

I used polythene sheets to work the compound on top of it.

I took equal amount of resin and hardener, knead it well and kept ready to work on.

At the sametime, this hardener sets completely in 90 minutes. So i kept the other tools ready prior mixing the components.

I used x-acto knife to create equal parts of the compound and later rolled to round balls as the cherry.

To the prepared balls, i inserted the wires such that it is more of the wire piercing into the cherry balls like the natural cherry fruit.

Make sure you make the leaf pattern with fine tools and also insert holes so that we can add these leaves to the jump rings.

Let the Cherry parts dry. As i started making the parts during night time, i left it to dry over night until i paint it the next morning.

As i used polythene sheet as the surface to make, i just pulled the parts after around 60 minutes so that it does not stick to the sheet if incase i have pressed closely to the sheet.

I will follow the same process for other earrings mentioned here as well.

For strawberry i add directly to the ear hook so that it does not loosely hang. So i am not using jump ring here.

I used stove burner cleaning tool to make the marking on the fruit to resemble the Achenes of the real strawberry.

For blueberry i wanted to make vibrant green color and berry fruits on top of it. So i made the leaf structure and placed the round balls into it.

I made sure to insert holes into the leaf structure so that we can insert jump rings into it.

After drying it well, i used acrylic paints of the below color to make the product according to my need:

1. SAP green - Strawberry leaves

2. Greenery green - Cherry and blueberry leaves

3. Crimson red - Cherry, strawberry and cap part of mushroom

4. Pink and salmon pink - Slight touch on the strawberry

5. Mix equal quantity of Ultramarine blue, Mauve violet, Orange and little amount of black - blueberry main part

6. Cerulean blue - center part of blueberry

7. White - Stem part of mushroom and dots on the cap part of mushroom

And for painting it, i fixed the earring parts to foam blocks as in the picture.