Fly-By-Night: Mary & the Witch's Flower Earrings
Introduction: Fly-By-Night: Mary & the Witch's Flower Earrings
After watching Mary and the Witch's Flower by Studio Ponoc, I made a pair of Fly-By-Night earrings for a friend as a Christmas gift. I had been planning on making a pair for myself, so that is what today's tutorial is about. These earrings will also have the added cool of glowing in the dark. Plus, even if no one else recognizes these from that movie when I wear them, they still look cute.
Supplies
1. Clay in a light bright blue color.
2. Roller for clay
3. Clay knife
4. Clay stylus tool or other pointed tool
6. Chalk pastels in varying shades of blue (light to dark) and a medium colored purple
7. Brush to apply pastels
8. Eye pins
9. Round nosed pliers (optional; I use them to help me place eye pins)
10. Wine corks with toothpicks stuck in them (I use these to place the clay on while I color it so I don't mess it up with my hands)
11. Glow-in-the-Dark paint (I use Deco Art )
12. Brush for glow-in-the-dark paint
13. Black Thread
14. Glue (I use Aleene's Tacky Glue)
15. Acrylic paint in a blue-purple color (I am using Blueberry Frost by Apple Barrel, NOT the Blue Bonnet color shown here)
16. 95
Varnish (optional for polymer clay)
17. Earring hooks
Step 1: Basic Form
Simple enough: roll out two balls from the clay in the *same* size.
*Or as close as you can :)
Set these aside.
Step 2: Calyx
The leafy piece on the bottom of a flower where the stem is is called the calyx.
Roll out your clay thinly. Cut out a six point star shape to cover the bottom of the flower. I use the stylus to draw them before I cut them out.
Step 3: Star Shapes
With the rest of the blue clay, roll the clay out thin.
With the stylus tool, trace two little star shapes on the clay. These star shapes should have rounded edges instead of traditional pointy edges. They should be small enough to sit on the little balls and look like bloom ends (like a blueberry. These really look like glowing blueberries.)
Cut these stars out carefully with the knife. You will probably have to smooth them out a bit and redefine the shape after you cut them out, but that is fine.
Place the star shapes on top of the blooms on the opposite end of the calyx. Press the stylus tool into the center of the star shapes, affixing them to the round clay.
Step 4: Eye Pins
Put an eyepin through the bottom of the bloom, through the calyx. I use my pliers to make sure I get the pin where I want it.
If you have eye pins you bought from the store, you may have to trim them to the right size. You want the pin to not go any farther than halfway through the flower. Also, remember to bend a zigzag shape into the bottom of the pin. This will prevent the eye pin from falling or being pulled out.
If you want to know specifically how I do this, or you want to learn about making your own eye pins, this tutorial will help you:
Jewelry Basics: DIY Eye Pins for Clay Charms
Step 5: Handy Tools
Now you have two little fly-by-night blooms.
Grab the toothpick/cork tools and place the blooms on the toothpicks. Put the toothpick in the hole in the center of the stars. Don't shove them on to the toothpicks, just enough that they will stay put and not fall off while you are coloring them.
Step 6: Color
Now it is time to color the flowers.
Since I know it is hard to see what colors I am putting where in the photos, I have made a chart to try to explain what colors I have and where they go. Of course, how you want to color it is open to interpretation because I am just trying to imitate what was in the movie. If you see it differently, color it differently.
*Don't color the calyx and rounded star portion. If you get color on them, no harm done, but we are going to be painting them later.
The fly-by-nights in the movie seem to glow from inside, but they have deep purple centers. So I am going to start with purple. 987