Howl's Moving Castle Earrings- Studio Ghibli

Howl's Moving Castle is one of my favorite Studio Ghibli movies. I find it inspiring.
One of the most sought-after pieces of Studio Ghibli jewelry is Howl's jewelry set. They sparkle like magic and are pretty pieces in themselves without having belonged to a handsome wizard. Today I am going to show you how to make your own Howl's Moving Castle earrings. I will be publishing Instructables on the necklace and ring as well.

Supplies

Earrings:

1. Clay in green

2. Eyepins

3. Gold hook earrings

4. Two small glass red seed beads

5. Wire in 24 gauge

6. Pliers

7. Green pastel

8. Knife or toothpick to scrape and mix pastel

9. Soft brush

10. Triple Thick (or TLS for polymer clay)

Sculpt Teardrop Shapes

With the green clay, roll it between your fingers, making one end smaller than the other, to make a teardrop shape. Insert an eye pin at the top of the tear drop. Make two. They should be about as long as a quarter is from side to side. Bake or leave to dry.

Adding Red Gems

Get out the gold earring hooks, piece of wire, and the glass red seed bead. With the round nosed pliers, curl one end of the wire piece into a loop. Slide the red bead onto the wire. The loop will stop it from coming off at the end.

Take the round nosed pliers and curl a second loop on top. You will probably have to remove your pliers and pinch it closed. Now the bead should be trapped by the two loops.

Open the loop on the earring hook by twisting the loop sideways where it meets. Don't pull it open. Slide on of the loops on the piece of wire onto the loop on the hook, then twist the hook closed, trapping the bead's wire loop on the hook. Do the same for both pieces.

*If you had gold wire it would be more accurate, but I didn't have any, so I had to go with silver.

Attach Earrings

Get out the dried/baked tear drop shapes. Open the loop on the eye pin on the tear drop shape. Hook it to the end loop on the bead wire, making it hang from the bottom. Close the eye pin loop.

Triple Thick Varnishing

To give them a bit of a luminescent appearance, I will be varnishing them with Triple Thick mixed with green pastel. I chose a darker shade of green pastel so that they could look like they "glowed" from within.

Scrap off the pastel stick into a powder. Mix this powder with a bit of Triple Thick varnish. Continue mixing until you get an even color.

With a brush, apply the colored Triple Thick to the teardrop shapes. Be careful not to overwork it; you can go back and add another coat later, but if you keep brushing what you have applied it will become lumpy.

I applied three coats in total.

The Earrings of Howl Jenkins Pendragon

And there you have it! You have these magical earrings. You can sport your Studio Ghibli style without screaming, "I love Studio Ghibli!" (even if you might want to). These earrings can be worn to formal events without standing out as fan jewelry and still being pretty.

I have another Studio Ghibli tutorial already published here. I am working on more Instructables about Howl's jewelry.

Go clay today!