Pretzel Friends Clay Earrings

Love snacks?  These adorable clay pretzel friends earrings may be just for you.  I made these as a last minute craft idea to match the Food Friends dress Brian made for me (see pictures below).  If you'd like a Food Friends dress, leggings, or skirt of your own, Brian is selling them in his shop, Wayton Designs.  You can also follow him @wayton.designs on Instagram to be the first to know about his latest designs.

I have a tutorial explaining how I made these earrings at the bottom of this post, so if you want to get straight to that, skip to the end.  But first, I have some pretzely photos I wanted to share with you.

Pretzel Friends Photos

Here I am wearing the pretzel friends earrings and Food Friends dress, with an actual pretzel on hand for the photos.

Here you can see the earrings a little better.  They're pretty eyecatching in my opinion.

And one last picture with our pretzel friends.  Now on to the tutorial.

Pretzel Friends Clay Earrings Tutorial

Materials:

*Oven bake clay

*Brown acrylic paint

*Black acrylic paint

*White acrylic paint

*Pink acrylic paint

*Ultra fine nail art brush

*Nail art dotting tool

*Ear wires

*Jump rings

*Jewelry pliers

*Acrylic sealer (optional)

Directions:

*Roll out clay into a long, thin strip.

*Shape the strip of clay into a pretzel.

*Carefully push jump rings into the tops of the pretzel shapes.

*Bake according to the directions on the clay packaging.  Remove from the oven and let cool.

*Once cool, it's time to paint the earrings.  If you used any color of clay other than brown, the first thing you'll want to do is paint the earrings brown.  If your clay is already brown, then move on to the next step.

*Now it's time to paint the face.  Use a dotting tool and black paint to create two eyes and the ultra fine nail art brush to create a mouth.

*Use the dotting tool and pink paint to create pink cheeks.  Let dry.

*Use the nail art brush and a tiny bit of white paint to add white highlights to the eyes.  This step was really tricky for me, as I had to hold the pretzel inside my focal length to do it, which made the image I was seeing a little blurry.  Feel free to skip this step if you're happy without the white highlights.

*Use the nail art brush and white paint to paint on salt crystals.  Let dry.

*Optional: Once the paint is dry, you can seal it with an acrylic sealer to protect the paint from chipping.

*Use the pliers to open the bottom of the ear wires.  Loop one ear wire through each earring and clamp shut with the pliers.