Paper Earrings

It's been awhile since I've worn earrings.  I figure it's because I'm not crazy about my little collection that I have so I decided that it's time to add some....at no cost!

Here's what you need to make your own pretty paper earrings with things you might already  have in your craft closet:

Materials:
-pretty medium to heavy weight scrapbooking paper
-Dimensional Mod Podge
-Glue gun or other adhesive
-small hole punch and needle nose pliers
-shepard hook earrings tops
-small rhinestones or other embellishments

Steps:
1) I let my Silhouette cut out my hydrangea shapes with the biggest of the 3 shapes only 3/4" wide.

If you don't have a Silhouette you can still do this project.  As you can see it's a very simple shape that just gets progressively smaller.

2) Coat all of your petal pieces with a nice thick layer of Dimensional Mod Podge.

I love this stuff because it dries clear and looks and acts a lot like resin without all the mixing.  You can get as close to the edge as you want and it shouldn't fall off.

3) Before you walk away to let everything dry overnight stick a little rhinestone (or better yet a Swarovski crystal) right in the middle of the smallest shapes.

Let the Mod Podge dry overnight making sure to shift your pieces a little about an hour or two into it to ensure that none of them are stuck to your table below.

4) Now you can do what I did and skip right to the next step but I don't recommend it.  You can see in the photo where I had to unglue my pieces to get the paper to fit the hole punch.  So just punch your holes now and save yourself the aggravation.

5) Now add the smallest dab of hot glue onto the middle of the largest shape and start stacking the other shapes on top, rotating as you go to make sure we can see all of the petals.

6) Using your needle nose pliers attach the shepard hooks.  You can add jump rings if you want to in between, I just didn't have any the right colour so I went straight to the hook. (I'm determined to use up my massive stash of jewellery making supplies without adding to it)

Tah Dah!  You've got yourself the prettiest pair of earrings on the block!

I like them so much I made another pair in a different shape....butterflies, of course!

I wish you could see how glossy they are.  They look just like resin covered ceramic but they're just paper!

This is really just a twist on my original paper jewellery that I made ages ago.  You can also see the necklace I made from paper here.

What do you think?  Are you a diamonds only kind of gal or could you see yourself sporting a pair of paper earrings?  Leave a comment below~