Introduction: Skillet of Bacon 'n' Eggs Earrings

By Etsy Shop
About: Clay and Jewelry Artist; All-around Creator

Wake up in the morning and put on a pair of skillet eggs 'n' bacon earrings to greet the day! Novelty earrings are the rage, and these will definitely catch people's attention. You can make them yourself and then people will notice them even more because of how radiant you will be while you wear them.

*In this Instructable I have tried to include polymer clay instructions and air dry clay instructions. I will have polymer clay steps marked with an asterisk and in bold.

Supplies

1. Clay (air dry or polymer clay) in black or grey, white, yellow, and translucent

2. Clay tools (roller, stylus, knife, workspace)

3. Small round cutter (optional)

4. Nail polish bottle with a smooth top

5. Eye pin

6. Acrylic paint in sequin black or iron black (if you are making a cast iron skillet, OPTIONAL)

7. Small brush

8. Soft pastels in rust red, brown, orange (or you can use diluted acrylic paint in the same colors)

9. Gloss Varnish (I use Duraclear Polyurethane ) *OR Liquid Clay

10. A toothpick or pin

11. Earring hooks

12. Round-nosed pliers

Step 1: Skillet Base

The first step is the skillet.

Condition the clay by kneading it in your hands and rolling it out several times with the clay roller. Once the clay is pliable, roll out the clay thinly, but not so thin that it wants to tear. This will be the frying surface of the skillet.

With the round cutters or with your knife, cut out a circle that is bigger in diameter than the top of the nail polish bottle. (I placed my nail polish bottle upside down on the clay so that I could make a pretty even circle by tracing around it with the knife.)

Center the circle over the top of the nail polish bottle and press it down around the top. Leaving a bit for the skillet's rim, trim around the top of the nail polish bottle so that you have a little flat bowl shape with nice smooth edges.

*POLYMER CLAY: You can preassemble the entire skillet and breakfast platter BEFORE baking, or you can bake as you go. I have marked steps where I think baking would be advisable if that is how you choose to do it. If not, just go through all the instructions until you are finished with the project, then bake it.

Step 2: Skillet Handle

Take a bit of your black/gray clay and make it flat. Place the eyepin on top of the flate shape and meld the clay over the eyepin. The eye pin inside helps to strengthen the handle of the skillet.

I roll the clay over the pin to make it cover it. I cut off any excess from the end (because there will be some).

Once you have smoothed the clay until there are no visible seams, cut the clay snake just a tiny bit beyond the end of the pin that is inside the clay. Now you have the handle. With a pin, or the stylus, or a toothpick, poke a hole in the handle right where the eye of the pin is. Make it go all the way through so that you can hang the earrings.

To attach the handle, place it against the skillet bowl that is on the nail polish bottle and using the stylus or another tool, smooth the two together to form one piece. If you can, make the pin going into the bowl part of the skillet because that will reinforce that join. If you can't, don't worry about it.

Now the skillet is pretty much finished. Take it off of the nail polish bottle carefully. You will have to kinda press it back into a circle shape after removing it because that will make it slightly warped. Using a tool (your choice), smooth the edges of the skillet bowl so that they are not rough from where you cut the clay.

*POLYMER CLAY: Pre-bake the skillet for sure if you are planning on painting it. If you want information on how to bake polymer clay, please see Ginger Allman over at the Blue Bottle Tree

Or set aside to dry, depending on your clay type.

Step 3: Paint the Skillet

This step might not be necessary depending on your original clay color or how happy you are with the original color.

After the skillet has dried or been baked, paint it with the acrylic paint. I wanted to paint mine because I have this color called "Sequin Black" or something like that, and it reminds me of the way cast iron kinda glistens.

Step 4: Egg Base

On to the egg (p.s: I hate eggs).

Take a tiny pinch of white clay and press it into a circle-ish shape. This should be a very organic shape, kinda circle, kinda oval, kinda egg that was cracked into the skillet mess.

With the stylus, poke little holes on the edge of the egg to give it a frayed look. Just keep pushing and poking the clay until you have decided that it looks like the edges of a fried egg.

Fried eggs vary a lot. Look up photos of some, or go cook one (bluh), to see what I mean. When they are cooked the edges brown first and become crispy and kinda melted looking. This is what you want to do to the edges of the egg.

I tried to darken the last photo to really show the little holes.

Once you are happy with the shape, it is time to color it.

Step 5: Colors

ALWAYS TEST YOUR COLORS BEFORE APPLYING THEM TO THE CLAY!

I mix soft pastels into tiny bits of varnish when I want color but not the regular opacity of acrylic paint straight out of the bottle. You can achieve the same result by mixing teeny bits of acrylic paint with varnish, but it is such a tiny amount that chalk pastels are easier. I just mix the varnish with the color on top of little plastic lids and I literally use just a drop of varnish.

*POLYMER CLAY: you will want to use Liquid Clay instead of varnish so that you can bake it in the oven, or you will just want to assemble the whole egg before coloring, bake, and then color with the varnish method.

Using a knife or a pin, scrape a little bit of brown pastel into just a drop of the gloss varnish. Stir it around with a pin or the stylus until the color is thoroughly mixed. Check the color by getting a bit of color on a toothpick of pin and then dragging it across a white surface (paper, plastic lid, etc.) This will be for the browned parts of the egg and bacon.

Step 6: Coloring the Egg Base

With a toothpick or a pin, take a tiny bit of the brown varnish mix on the end and apply it around the outside edges of the egg base. Don't apply it all the way around, it looks more natural if it is random (eggs never fry completely perfectly).

Set the egg base aside.

Step 7: Egg Yolk

Take a teeny tiny pinch of yellow and roll it into a ball (use the tip of your finger and the palm of your hand). Slightly flatten the yellow ball. This is the yolk.

Attach the yolk to the egg base using either varnish or liquid polymer clay. I put mine slightly off center because I think that makes it look more natural than if it was right in the center.

Mix orange with the varnish, but use less pastel so that you have a more yellow-orange color than straight up orange. This will be for the oily parts of the egg and bacon.

I then applied some of my orange varnish mix to the egg yolk. This helps make the color deeper and give the yolk some depth instead of being a flat yellow. Flat colors do not look natural, pretty much no matter what you are making.

Once you have done that, take a tiny bit of the orange varnish mix and apply it to some of the edges, going on into the white of the egg. This is oil from cooking.

Attach the egg to the skillet with varnish or liquid clay.

*POLYMER CLAY: You can pre-bake again to attach the egg to the skillet or just keep working on to the next steps.

Step 8: Bacon

With the roller, roll out the translucent clay very thinly. Don't make it so thin that it is impossible to handle (as I almost did), but make it thin enough that it is believable as bacon.

Most bacon is pretty thin because the meat market is stingy. "Thick cut" does not exist.

Using the knife, cut the clay that you rolled out into two thin strips (or more if you want more bacon than that). Make them similar in size to one another, and make sure they are not too long to fit in your skillet with the egg.

With one of the bacon pieces on your finger, use the stylus tool to make it wave and dip like real bacon does. Make it kinda crinkly looking, not flat. Flat bacon only exists when people squish all the goodness out of it. Do this step for both pieces.

Step 9: Coloring the Bacon

Back to the varnish mixes.

Make two drops of varnish on your mixing surface. In one drop of varnish, put a tiny bit of rust red color, just enough to make a kind of pink tint to the varnish (don't use very much at all). That is for the fatty portion of the bacon. In the second drop of varnish, mix more of the rust red color until you have an actual red. That is for the meat of the bacon.

Starting with the dark red varnish mix, use a toothpick or pin to pick up some color. Carefully color just the edge of the bacon strip so that it has a stripe. Skip a section on the bacon, and then color another stripe. You are going to have three or two stripes on the bacon, two dark and two light pink.

Set the first piece of bacon aside and paint the other piece of bacon in the same way. Don't get overly concerned with making it super straight, no one will notice and if they are inspecting it that closely tell them to go make their own.

Give the bacon pieces a minute to dry, then take the translucent pink and color the alternating stripes to the red ones.

Add tiny bits of the brown varnish mix to the edges to make it look like it is partly fried. I also add a tiny bit of the orange.

Once the stripes are complete, attach the bacon to the skillet with varnish or liquid clay.

*POLYMER CLAY: Now you can bake the whole thing!

Step 10: Varnish and Earring Hooks

*POLYMER CLAY: Varnishing is not necessary for polymer clay, but you can if you want to.

I am varnishing my skillet and eggs with Duraclear Polyurethane varnish. I generally give my pieces three coats to try to make sure they are protected.

Adding hooks is the last step. With a pair of round-nosed pliers, open the end of the fish hook by twisting the loop sideways (don't pull it open, twist it open. It will warp if pulled open). Insert the loop into the loop of the skillet handle. Close the loop by twisting it back in the opposite direction of that you twisted it open.

IF the loop of your earring hook is too small, you can use a jump ring, providing that your jump ring is small enough to go into the hole of the handle. Open your jump ring the same way that I said to open the fish hook loop.

Step 11: Eggs 'n' Bacon!

You're done! You have made a wonderful pair of earrings that are fun to wear and a great conversation starter.

I hope you learned something from this Instructable. If you liked it, please give it a vote for the Jewelry Challenge, and head over to my channel by clicking my name up at the top. Have a great day and enjoy the bacon and eggs!