Clay leaves and bronze bead wrapped earrings

Lightweight and natural coloured earrings featuring hand crafted clay leaves hanging from bead wrapped bronze earwires.

Because I love the process of working with the clay stage of silver, bronze and copper metal clays, I have been looking for a clay medium to work with that will allow me to enjoy that same process, without the necessity to kiln fire the material to a finished state.

These entirely hand crafted leaves have been made in an air dried clay, which is very lightweight to wear - it feels almost like papier mache when dried.   I have experimented with a number of brands before settling on one which is very robust when dry.  In fact, I made some test pieces and have been unable to break them with my hands - no other brand I tried passed that test.

The leaves have been finished with an acrylic varnish which contains some coloured metallic particles giving them a greeny gold metallic sheen. 

I've paired them with two little semi-precious gemstones of Picture Jasper wrapped into the long drop bronze earwires, as the stones matched so perfectly.

The earrings drop 50mm (2") overall from the top of the earwires and the leaves are 18mm (0.7") at their widest.


Please note:   The clay used for the leaves is water soluble and whilst the multiple coats of varnish will protect the leaves in general wear, I would not consider them to be waterproof and therefore not suitable to wear when swimming or showering.