Retro spike earrings

Date: 02-12-2013 by Elaine Zant

Aren't these earrings a cheerful bunch? These retro spike earrings are a combination of 10 mm cabochons and faux turquoise spike beads. As you can see, many different colour-combinations are possible, and I think a display of these earrings would be a great success at - for example - a Christmas market.

I started by matching different colours. The cabochons come in 10 different colours, and a strand of spike beads contains approximately 7 different colours. Each strand has a different colour-consistency, but since a strand contains over 80 beads, which means you'll have more than enough beads to make matching sets.

What do you need for 1 pair of earrings?

1 pair of ear hooks, I have chosen to use gold-coloured materials, but bronze is a good option as well.
2 retro cabochons, size 10 mm
2 lace edge settings for the cabochons
2 open rings, size 10 mm
2 faux turquoise spike beads
Glue, I have used Hasulith glue
Prongs to assemble the earrings

Fold down two of the eyelets of the lace edge setting to turn it into a connector. Apply a bit of glue and glue and fit the cabochon into the setting.

Use a 10 mm ring to make the pendant with the spike bead. It might be a bit of a struggle to fit the ring through the hole of the bead, but I found that you can usually solve this problem by turning the ring around.
Attach the ring to the setting. When I made the earrings I made sure the opening of the rings was located at the back.

Fold down the eyelet of the ear hook and attach the other side of the setting to the hook.

Items

Hasulith Glue 31 ml L001

French earring hooks gold OH015

Jump rings gold 10 mm OR-G004

Lace edge setting round gold for cabochon 10 mm Z053B

Small retro cabochon round aqua blue 10 mm CB-R007G

Small retro cabochon round yellow 10 mm CB-R007B

Faux turquoise spike beads mix 25x5 mm FTQ-SP003

Small retro cabochon round red 10 mm CB-R007C

In this tutorial I will show you how to make a pair of pastel drop earrings. The drop beads are made of resin, and I love the intense coulor of these beads. I have kept the colour palette fairly soft by combining them with cabochons made of natural materials. The filigree of the bead caps gives the earrings a lovely vintage look, and you'll see that they are quite light, even though they are quite long. It's a great design and the possibilities to vary the look and colours are endless!
What do you need for 1 pair of pastel drop earrings?

1 pair of resin drop beads. These beads are designed to imitate the colours of turquoise and coral.
2 head pins, bronze, 70 mm.
2 long bronze filigree bead caps.
2 ear studs with a lace edge setting, 12 mm.
2 cabochons, 12 mm. I opted for cabochons made of natural materials. The soft colours of the rose quartz, aventurine, and howlite cabochons really bring out the colours of the resin beads.
A drop of glue to attach the cabochons.
Pliers.

How do you proceed?

The setting of the ear stud has a lace edge, a sculpted edge. Fold down 1 of the eyes of the edge so a pendant can be attached to the setting.

Make the pendants with the drop beads.
First, have a look at the bead caps. It might be that they need to be bent into shape. Be careful when you slide them over the bead; you don't want to damage the resin.
Also, you might want to have a look at the head pins to make sure they are straight. If they aren't, just bend them into shape.
The photograph shows a blue bead on the head pin. I have used this bead to make sure I always have an extra bit of pin left to make an eyelet for the pendant. This bead is 8 mm in size, so if I cut off the material above the bead, I will have exactly 8 mm to make the eyelet. You will see it's a great little trick to make sure the pandants' eyelets are of equal size.

Don't fold the eyelet of the pendant all the way through; you need to attach it to the eyelet of the ear stud before you can close it up!

Glue the cabochon into the ear stud.

Now, the eyelet of the ear stud can be gently folded back into their original position. However, if you prefer to keep the eyelet as it is, you can of course choose to keep it folded down.