Securing post earrings - how I do it

Although I've never had a problem with backs coming off of post earrings, I know cyanoacrylate
 glue (Super Glue) can break down with time. So I decided to start covering/securing posts by enclosing them with another thin layer of polymer clay. This is the process I've come up with. 

(Sorry for the blue photos - dang this winter light!) 

First, I glue the earring back in place with cyanoacrylate glue and allow to dry. This will hold the post in place still while I work.

My materials are...the earrings, small piece of scrap computer paper, small lump of clay the same color as the back of the earrings, tiny needle, tiniest circle Kemper cutter, blade and Genesis medium (you could use liquid polymer but the Genesis is thicker and does ooze as much). 

 I roll the clay very thin (second to the thinest setting on my pasta machine) and cut 2 circles with the Kemper cutter. 

I put a small dot, just as a marker really, in each of the circles of clay using a small needle. And I put a hole in the paper using the same needle. 

Next I put a thin layer of Genesis medium on the back of the earring.

 I put one of the circles onto the earring back and push it all the way down to the base. 

Then I put the paper right over the post, all the way down to the clay circle. I've shown it here in one hand but I actually use both hands, pinching with thumb and forefinger, pushing the paper down, turning the earring as I go, making the clay circle flatter and flatter to the earring. Pull the paper up, check the clay, push flatter if you need to. Until it looks like this... 

This is what they look like when they're finished, just about perfect circles, no texture, smooth against the ear. (I've already darkened the earrings so that the circles that I just made show up but normally I would do my finial finish with acrylic after they are cured.) It really doesn't take very long at all to do this extra step and I think it will increase the strength and longevity of my earrings going forward.

And I'm all about going forward.  

Small is good too

I learned last year that a lot of folks purchase my tiny earrings as stocking stuffers so I've tried to stuff the shop with them this year. Some are even one of a kind - specialness in a tiny package.

Someone asked me not long ago why I don't stop making the tiny earrings and focus on larger pieces. Good question - I don't mind being questioned. Its me think about what I am doing. But my answer was simple - I have short hair and like to wear tiny earrings.

Sprout in aqua

So...tiny earrings will continue but many designs that I've had for a while will be gone after the New Year. Out with the old and in with the new.