Egg Shell Decorated Jewelry

You will need

1. Egg Shells

2. Base- wood cutouts/ cardboard/ existing smooth surface wooden jewelry that you want to decorate

3. Glue- mod podge or white glue + transparent nail polish (optional)

4. Decorative paper for back

5. Food color or water color or alcohol color

6. Jewelry findings (earning hooks, jump rings)

7. Nail file

8. Pencil

9. Brush

10. Pliers

11. Scissors

Soak egg shells in water for some time. We do this in order to make it easy to remove the membrane that is present on the inside of the shell. It is very essential to remove the membrane and have cleaned shells only. If the membrane is not removed the glue will adhere to it and the shells will eventually fall off the jewelry.

The membrane can be easily peeled off using ones fingers. Let the shells dry. You will notice the shells have a crisp sound when the membrane is removed.

Take the base wood piece and apply modpodge or glue on it with a brush. Then place a piece of egg shell on it and press it down with your fingers. The egg shell will break and you can further flatten it by pressing on the broken pieces. Let there be gaps in between. (It adds to the texture. You can paint the base before starting if you want to have a different color background.)

Add pieces of egg shell to cover the entire surface. Let the edges be unfinished for now. If you want you can overlap pieces. It might be a little tricky if it glue sticks to your fingers so try using different fingers each time or use a brush to place the shells in position once flattened. Make sure to leave the hole for the jump rings uncovered. Let it dry. Once dry you can carefully break the extra pieces of egg shell along the edges.

Use the nail file to smoothen the edges of the pieces so that you have a nice clean edge. make sure you have not covered the hole for the jump ring to be inserted.

Once dry, you can paint using water colors or food color or alcohol colors. I simply used a brush to apply colour on the mosaic surface. Paint in between too so that the base get colour. You can use multiply colours. Experiment with shades.

Let it dry.

You can choose to do a mosaic on the other side as well or simply use a printed paper to decorate it.

Use the base to draw the required shape on the printed paper that you want to stick. Cut it out and stick with glue. Make sure to pierce the area where there is a hole for the jump rings to be attached.

Once dry you can apply mod podge over the surface. it might appear whitish and the paint will spread. but don't worry it will get transparent on drying. You could also use a transparent nailpolish for this step, instead of modpodge.

Do the same for the other side.

You can now attach jump rings and hooks and string.

Flaunt your new creation.