Vintage Flower Necklace Tutorial

Hi! This is a tutorial written by me, and it involves using clay and flower shapes to make a necklace. I have never really worked with clay or flower shapes before so I decided to jump in the deep end and I think it turned out pretty well actually, which just shows you that newbies can make this too!

You can also view the following tutorial on this web page, if you would like to see larger photos.

You Will Need:* Vintage flowers (like from No Snow Supplies) - enough to make 5 layered flowers

* Yellow clay - I used classic golden yellow FIMO

* Wire - It doesn't matter what type it is. I used 22 gauge brass wire

* Necklace chain

* 4 Jump rings and a clasp to match your necklace chain

* A pin or needle

* Glue - I used E600

* A rolling pin or something else to flatten the clay

* A knife or similar to cut the clay

* A baking tray

* Oven

* Baking parchment

* Felt - I used black felt baize but any felt will do

* Pliers (to attach the jump rings)

* Craft knife or scissors

* Wire cutters

1) Layer the flower shapes in your favourite combinations so that you have 5 complete flowers overall.

2) Take a small amount of your FIMO clay and squash and roll in in your hands to warm it up and make it malleable, then make it into a ball.

3) Create a ball of clay for the centre of each flower, in the size you think looks the best. Make them as smooth and round as you can.

4) Take a length of wire and bend a hook in one end. The wire piece only needs to be a maximum of about 5cm long.

5) Push the hooked end into the clay ball so the hook is roughly in the centre of the ball. Smooth and reshape the clay around the wire.

6) Do this for every clay ball for every flower. You should end up with 5 clay balls with a length of wire sticking out of each one.

7) To give a bit of detail to the flower centres, take a pin or needle and make little holes on the top of each ball.

8) Carefully place the flower centres on baking parchment on a baking tray and put them in the oven for the time and temperature written on the instructions for your clay.

9) After the time is up (my FIMO took half an hour) take the baking tray out of the oven and wait for it to cool.

10) When cool, assemble the flowers and the clay centres together to check how they look. Then separate the pieces again.

11) Put a small amount of superglue on the underside of the yellow clay ball and between each flower layer. Assemble the flowers together again and press together the pieces firmly. Leave the glue to dry.

You should now have 5 flowers with wire stems. Very pretty :-)

12) Roll out a piece of clay so that it is long enough to incorporate all of the flowers, and thick enough so that it won't be fragile when baked (approx. 4mm).

13) Mould the clay to the shape you want the necklace to be and push the flower wires in where the flowers will later be positioned. Adjust the positioning until you are happy with it.

14) Use a knife or similar to cut the clay into a neat shape - I chose a shallow 'v' shape.

15) Make holes with a pin all of the way through the clay at the points where you want the flower wires to go through. Make another hole at the top corner of each side, as this is where jump rings will be attached later.

16) Make one last check that the holes are in the correct places by positioning the flowers in their places again.

17) Put the clay on the baking tray and bake as before. Try and make the clay as neat as possible before you bake (i.e. unlike mine!)

18) When the clay base has cooled, push the flower wires through their respective holes in the order you want them to be in.

19) Making sure the flowers are pushed against the clay so that they're as close as they can be, bend the wire stems onto the back of the clay base. Glue the wires in place.

20) Place the necklace (flowers side up) on top of a piece of black felt. Cut the felt to the same size as the clay section.

21) Glue this felt onto the base of the clay section, making sure you don't glue over the holes at either end which are where the jump rings are going to go through.

22) Attach 2 jump rings to the 2 holes in the clay section i.e. so there's one ring at each end. If the clay is too thick/the jump ring is too small, you may have to make your own ring out of a spare length of wire. Click here to see how to make a jump ring. Click here to see how to attach a jump ring.

23) Attach 2 equal lengths of chain to the jump rings (1 each end) - the length depends on how long you want your necklace to be - and then, using another jump ring, attach a clasp to one chain end and just a single jump ring on the other.

24) Your necklace should now be complete :-)

Hope you liked my 2nd ever tutorial!