Quilled Christmas Themed Earrings

A simple Christmassy themed paper quilled earring. A beautiful piece of everyday jewellery you can make and wear in just a few steps.

Strips of 1mm wide and 12" long, coloured paper - various shades of blue and white

Jewellery wire

Regular paper

Tweezers

Glue

Beads (Optional)

Earring hooks

Scale

Cutting Mat or a bunch of news papers

This is my first attempt at designing an idea on Tinker Cad but I absolutely loved how it came out.

I started out with adding a ring and elongating it to my preferences and the thought I had in my mind about how the design would be.

I added the flower images and tinkered with various ideas until I came upon the final one showed here.

I love how I can see what my final creation might look like and went with the above shown design.

I usually use ready cut 1mm strips for my projects but if you don't have them ready, you'll need to collect the regular coloured paper and fold it in half. I use A4 size papers since they are most comfortable to handle and give me the desired 12" in height.

Fold the sheets in half and stack them together lengthwise on your cutting mat and place your scale at the 1mm mark and use your sharpest paper cutter to cut the strips.

You will need around 100 strips of paper to make 4 flowers shown in the earrings. Cut the strips and keep them aside.

First we'll start rolling the strip.

Use your tweezer to start rolling the strips. Keep a firm grip on the paper and continue rolling the paper.

Once the roll is created, apply a bit of glue on the end of the paper and stick it.

Once it's stuck, pinch a side of the roll and create a teardrop shape.

Once the shape is made, stick a strip of white paper around the teardrop and cover it once. Stick the tip of the white strip and adhere it to the petal.

Once you've created around a 100 petals, keep them aside.

You will also need to create 4 buds for your flowers. Use half of a white strip (6") to make the rolls. Keep all the petals and buds tight. Not loose.

After you've made the petals, brush them on both sides with a mixture of glue and water so that they remain strong and don't unfurl. This is important.

Start the next step only after the glue and water mixture is applied.

The ratio for glue and water should be 50:50.

The regular paper i'd asked you to keep, cut that into tiny circles. About 1.5 cm in size for the outermost layer.

About 1 cm in size for the center and topmost layer.

Now we start pasting the petals on the circles.

The outermost layer will need around 8 petals. The centre layer 7 and the innermost layer will need 5 or 6 petals.

Keep them aside to dry.

Stick all the three layer one on top of the other.

Apply glue on the topmost layer and stick on the bud.

Using a blunt object (I've used the end of my painting brush) press down on the bud by keeping the flower in the palm of your hand.

This will give the flower a curved shape. Continue doing this very carefully to all the flowers.

We'll need to add another layer of petals at the bottom so it doesn’t look unfinished or incomplete.

For that, you'll need to make a 6 petaled layer like the layers we made initially and add a bud to that.

Make the bud with 2 colours so it doesn’t stand out. Stick the bud to the layers and stick the layer to the back of the flower.

Do this to all the flowers and keep the 4 flowers ready.

Use your jewellery wire - I've taken a 11 inch long wire for each of the earrings.

Fold it in half and start twirling so it is stronger. I had to do this because I had really thin wire. If you have thicker wire, you won’t need to fold and twirl it. You can use it as it is - and around 6" length.

Once you've folded the wire, leave a loop at the bottom and insert a bead. This bead is optional but I think it looks really cute.

Once you've inserted the bead, spread the wire with any rounded object, i've used the end of my quilling tool to create an oval shape in the wire.

Insert your flower here. The back layer should stick out the other side of the wire. That's another reason we added this additional layer.

Compress the wire on top of the flower, give it a twist and add another bead here. Repeat the process and add another flower.

Continue twisting the wire again and add another bead here - above the 2nd flower.

Once this is done, give the wire a final twist.

Loop in your earring hook here and twist the excess wire around it and lock the earring in place.

Voila! Your beautiful Christmassy themed earrings are ready! :)

How does it look?

You can make poinsettia themed earrings too by using various shades of reds and greens or white and greens. Turn this into a beautiful personal gift for your loved ones.

You could also use the flowers singularly and make earrings accordingly.

OR

You could make these tiny flowers and stick magnets behind them to make them into fridge magnets!

The options and ideas are endless. I hope you like this instructable :)

Share pics if you make this.