Rice Paper Earrings!

Hello Friends! We made it to the fair, in the rain, yesterday but you know, it was OK, I’d take rain over crowds any day! I guess it was just going to be a soggy day, I went down to my studio yesterday morning to find half of the basement flooded and I freaked because my husband was at work and it was pouring buckets outside, what a time for my sump pump to poop out. I grabbed my bilge pump (actually I have been dying to try it out, we bought it over a year ago and had yet to have a flood) and I ran hose and pumped out that water, go me! It was like I was in a pirate ship! Outta my way you scurvy kids, me gots to dry out this vessel before ye gets to go to the fair arrrrrgh! Now that sounds way cooler with a pirate accent. Jason fixed the problem when he got home from work (a clogged pipe) and met us at the fair. I looked at a radar map that assured me it was going to rain until we got there then dry up for the rest of the day but apparently radar maps are not that accurate, I suggested the kids wear pants and raincoats but they chose shorts and sweatshirts. Since I have a “no whining” policy when I take them out they were happy as clams, clams ha,  they were as wet as clams too LOL! Speaking of clams today’s project reminds me of the delicate mother of pearl finish on seashells:

I found a wonderful tutorial by Ross Barbera on making rice paper earrings, I saw it a few weeks ago and filed in in my brain under “something to try when I was feeling puttery” and a long weekend was just the time. I knew I’d have little snippets of time here and there to work and this was perfect due to all of the steps involved.

Ross has a video of this process and wow, it was like taking a class. He goes over making the wire hoop, gluing the paper on, coloring it and varnishing it. Everything you need to know. He is fun to listen to as well because he sounds like Dustin Hoffman 🙂

These are my first attempts, they lack the elegance and finesse of Ross’s work but I’m pleased with them for now. Looking at the close up photos I see that I need to do some additional filing on some.

I was wondering how to display these pieces and I remembered a sheet of very fancy overpriced metal mesh I bought at a scrapbook store for $6 many years ago…

…I do believe it the the same material we constructed out chicken pen out of…yep, about 2 cents worth of hardware cloth, oh well, at least it is getting used LOL!

I recommend you make these earrings in batches because when you get to the part when you add watercolor you will want to experiment and you will wish you had more papered frames to play with, plus I have a hard time leaving something alone so I need another project to work on or I will frig with it until I ruin it, rice paper is quite delicate…

I did experiment with some of the scraps tho and I will share that with you later. If you want to make some of these you can find Ross Barbera’s tutorial here, he has a wealth of info on his blog too so spend some time there! Thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!