1980's Crazy Cat Earrings

Tucked away in her jewelry stash, my mother had these wooden cat earrings. We kids were always fascinated with them. They were big, colorful, and odd. They seemed very special and unique.

Once I got my ears pierced, I borrowed the cat earrings to wear to school. I knew nobody else would be wearing earrings like mine.

Now I know that the "crazy cat earrings" were a trendy thing in the 80's. I think some of the ones I have seen are cool and others are just plain weird.

Today, I decided to make some cat earrings inspired by the ones my mother has.

(If you prefer a video, I have embedded a video on this project from my Youtube channel, Clayalotte)

1. Clay (air dry or polymer). This clay can be the color you want the cat to be, or just whatever color if you are ok with painting the cat the color you want. I am using white air dry clay.
2. Eye pins
3. Earring Hooks
4. Clay Roller
5. Clay Knife
6. Clay Stylus tool or a dull toothpick/pencil
7. Acrylic paint in the colors of your choice (I am using light blue, light green, dark blue, and black)
8. A water container to rinse your brushes
9. Small brushes; one for larger areas and one for fine details.

Here are the pieces that inspired this little project. As you can see, they are strangely shaped and strangely colored. The one little cat is obviously a cool guy who is going on vacation.

First, I am going to draw a picture of what I want my cat to look like. This drawing will be to scale. Simple shapes are what these earrings are all about, so it doesn't have to be detailed. It could be an oval that you will paint a cat on.

Roll out the clay thinly, not too thin,but thin enough for an earring. This is personal preference. It should be the same size as your drawing.

Take your drawing and lay it on the clay. Don't press down. With the stylus tool or dull toothpick, trace the drawing, pressing lightly into the clay. This will create an image on the clay surface. Don't press too hard or you will tear the paper or get the paper stuck to the clay.

Pull off the paper and see the cat imprint left on the clay. With the knife tool, cut out the cat shape.

Add the eye pin to the cat shape. If you gently hold the clay in between your finger and thumb while you press the eye pin in (using the other hand) it will stop the clay from warping badly.

Repeat for the second cat. I prefer my earrings to be mirror images, so I will flip this cat over after cutting it out. After putting the eye pin in, I look at the drawing I made and redraw the face and tail details on the cat I flipped over. The original tracing is now on the back side, so I have to redraw the front side. I also retrace the details on the first cat just to make sure that they are as deep as I want them.

Now it is time to bake the cats (ahhhh!) or let them dry.

Now it is time to paint your base coat. If you used clay in the color you wanted for a base color than you don't have to do the first bit.

I paint the entire cat, including the sides and the back, the light green color I picked out. Now I want to highlight the indentations of the face and tail with the dark blue.

I get the finest tip brush and carefully paint inside the indented lines with the dark blue. If I mess up and go outside the lines, I dampen a paper towel and very carefully wash off the excess paint.

With the light blue, I paint the cat's eyes very carefully with the fine tip brush. I wanted their eyes to really pop, so I chose a light color.

Now using the dark blue, I look at my drawing for reference and paint the stripes that I originally drew on the paper. These cats apparently loved wacky patterns, so whatever you want to do is cool. I personally like stripes better than polka dots, so I went with stripes.

Now I get out the black paint to make their pupils. I am using my stylus tool (or a dull toothpick) and just barely dipping the tip into the black paint. Then I touch the stylus to the clay, thus making a tiny dot of paint. I think this is way easier than trying to do this with a fine tip brush as the plastic end isn't going to bend and possibly get paint everywhere, like brush bristles would. If you have ball tools like for nail or mandala art, these work great for that, too!

The little cats are almost ready.

Now we will varnish the cats.

I prefer Duraclear Gloss Varnish. I have used it for years and it is durable and easy to use. You simply brush it on with a soft brush. It doesn't really leave streaks if you do thin coats. I generally do two to three coats.

Now add the earring hooks. With the pliers, grip the loop of the earring hook and open it by twisting it sideways. Don't wrench it open. Put the open loop through the eye pin on the cat earrings, and then close the earring loop by twisting it back the way it came.

They are finished! Ta-daa!

Yay! You have completed the project.

The second picture shows mine with the inspiration. They look similar, but should have been bigger to really look like them. I also should have rolled the edges down so they resembled sanded down wood. But, they are still cute and show off my favorite colors.

Have a wonderful day and go clay today!