Be my Valentine Earrings Week 6

With Valentines day falling in week 6 of the 52 earring project, it was not hard at all to come up with the theme.

I started out the week working with translucent clay, so made a few translucent hearts. I tried adding a red glitter to the clay, and red ink to the clay.  The red washed out.  Not too bad, but didn't ring my chimes.

I then thought I might try for a faux ceramic heart look.  My thought was to make a kinda banner across the heart.  My first try, the banner is too thick for my liking. Back to the pasta machine... this one I like better. With the first heart I used Watermelon ink to color the LPC.  The color was not red enough without putting on several layers.  It lost it's ceramic look.  So the next time, I used Pepper Red ink thinking it would be darker. Surprising, it was lighter than the watermelon. I only used one layer of colored LPC to keep it more ceramic.

Used a waterproof pen to highlight the stamped letters.

These I liked enough to make into earrings. But I was on a roll and did not stop here.  I was not happy being unable to get a good red color using ink, so I thought I would try using the PanPastel Chalk red - it is really vibrant.







I made a basic heart shape and used a needle tool to outline the stamped letters to make the banner. I then colored the bead with chalks and baked.  After baking, I used LPC colored with black ink to antique.  With the first pair, I did not realize that I was making marks that would look like a strawberry when colored in.  Opps... so the second pair, when they come out of the oven, looked a bit like wood. To keep this theme, I antiqued with dark paint and used a satin sealer.

Shortcake anyone?

 I added a little bling to spark these up.

I am really enjoying this challenge. Coming up with a new idea every week AND blogging about it. Keeps my creative juices flowing.