Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Hey guys :)

For another party theme, I made some Indian inspired jewellery to go with my outfit. In case you wonder, I don't mean Native American but Indian as from India ;)
I'm gonna show you here how you can make a simple necklace, earrings and a bangle using clay, stamps and swarovski crystals. It's easy to alter this set by using different stamps, different shapes,  and different crystals or beads. Use the materials you have. Enjoy :)

Tools and Materials:

Polymer Clay
Gold Powder or Acrylic Paint
Oriental Stamps
Cookie Cutters
Metal Sheet
Liquid Clay
Blade or X-Acto Knife
Swarovski Crystals
Jewellery Findings (Headpins, Chain, Closure...)
Beads (Bicone Crystals, Teardrop-shaped Crystals...)

Instructions:

First decide how you want your necklace to look. Teardrop shapes for example work nicely for Indian jewellery. You can look at some pictures on the internet for inspiration :)
It's nice to use some graduated cutters to make the necklace from several pieces but you can of course just make one piece. Choose some nice stamps with ornaments to stamp into the clay. Of course you can also roll out very thin snakes of clay and create a design with those but it's much easier to stamp.

Here a sketch of how the necklace and earrings can look like:

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

I have this set of wooden stamps which are meant for stamping on fabric and chose one of them for my central piece. Roll out your clay of the colour of your choice (I chose brown which is easy to cover by gold) on the thickest setting of your pasta machine or by hand and press in your stamp. Some people roll over the stamp with a rolling pin but I found that it sometimes distorts the design. Therefore, I recommend either pressing with your hands (while standing) or putting a large heavy object on top and applying pressure to that.
Then cut out your design where you like it best with your chosen cookie cutter or by hand.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

For the other two necklace pieces, I chose a smaller stamp and a smaller cutter, but of course that's personal preference. I also created two more (one size smaller ones) with this stamp for the dangling parts of the earrings.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

You can either decide to hang those earring pieces from ear hooks or  make another piece for studs to go on. The picture below shows my pieces for the studs.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Now onto preparing the bangle. Measure your arm and cut a strip of metal from a metal sheet. If you don't have one, you can also use an empty soda can but it might be too flexible. Bend it into a cuff, you can bend it around a glass if you have one with the right diameter.
Roll out some more clay and cut a strip that is slightly bigger than your metal cuff. Texture it to make it more interesting. I used this crinkled up paper (not sure what it's called :D) and pressed it in for an interesting texture but you can use sandpaper, a toothbrush or anything you prefer.

You can also make your bangle only from clay, if you roll it out thick enough. But I'm always worried that it breaks if you use it.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Place your clay strip onto your metal piece and attach it with the help of liquid clay. Smooth it down from the middle to the outside thoroughly to avoid air bubbles that will show after baking.

Wrap the overhang around the sides.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Shave away the excess clay on the inside with your blade.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Cover all of the pieces you made with gold powder and then pre-bake them for about 10 min. Of course you can also paint them with gold acrylics later.

To finish of the bangle, take another sheet of clay and texture it. Attach it to the inside with liquid clay and shave of the excess clay again. Smooth out any seams and apply gold powder.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

To make a design on the bangle I used my big and small stamps from above again and cut them out with round cookie cutters. Put on the larger circle with liquid clay underneath and the small one on top. Cut any excess and apply gold powder. Tip: you can also cut clay with small scissors (like mine in the picture) which often works better than using a knife.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

If you want you can antique your pieces by brushing on watered down black paint and wiping away the excess with a tissue.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Once your pieces are out of the oven you can turn to their back to be able to hang them. Of course you can just poke holes into the front before or after baking but I think it looks nicer if you have the eye-pins at the sides. You can also hang some beads from your pieces.
To recreate my look, take some eye-pins and bend them like in the picture. This way they won't fall out after baking. Place them where you want your beads to hang, like one in the middle and two next to it. Then roll out some more clay, texture it as before, cut the same shapes as your already baked pieces, apply liquid clay to the baked clay and place your raw pieces on top to cover the eye-pins. Don't make the clay too thin otherwise, you'll have bumps where the eye-pins are, like I do (but it's on the back and I'm not selling it so I didn't mind).

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Here I also sandwiched a toothpick in between the layers because initially I wanted to string the pieces on cord. However, if you want to use chain, I recommend embedding another set of eye-pins on either side. If you have any excess at the sides, cut it off and don't forget to apply gold powder again at the back and the sides (or paint it after baking).

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

If you want to make studs, you'll have to securely embed the metal (or plastic) piece into the clay. Here you can see the baked piece of clay in the same shape. Poke your stud through. Apply liquid clay to the baked part and stick the raw piece on top, pressing it down really well to help it adhere. You can also glue the stud on after baking but this way it looks neater and is more secure. Shave away any excess you may have at the sides and apply gold powder again.

Bake all of your pieces again.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

After everything is painted to your liking, you can add some crystals. If you have any with a hot fix back, you can also do this before and simply bake them together with your pieces.  Otherwise, just glue them on now in areas that look nice. Use a very strong glue like e6000. I used 3 blue and 2 green ones for my bangle.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Here are the other parts. The smallest ones are going to be earrings, the other three are for the necklace. I wasn't sure if the glue was really enough, so I added very thin snakes of clay around the crystals just to be sure. You can see the difference in colour on the photo. I then brushed on some more gold powder.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Now onto assembling everything. Put some pretty beads, like the teardrop-shaped crystal beads I used, on head pins and bend a loop with your round-nose pliers. Cut away any excess.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Bend open your loop with your pliers to attach it. Always twist sideways and don't pull! Otherwise you'd weaken the metal.

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Attach them to your pieces and then attach chain in the same way (or string them on cord). Add some beads in between and at the sides if you like. Assemble your earrings with jump rings and if you're scared of losing your cuff, you can also attach a piece of chain and a closure by drilling a hole at the ends and adding a jump ring.

And here is the finished set of Indian inspired jewellery: 

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

Underneath is the fabric of tunic I wore to the party. So what do you think?

Tutorial Indian Jewellery

I hoped you liked this project. It's easy to substitute any of the steps here if you don't have all the materials. Just use your imagination :)
Let me know if you have any questions :)


See you soon