guest post- paper earrings from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

I have asked a few of my creative friends to help me out with my blog here and there during my time with a new baby and today's guest post comes to you from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer

I love making something out of nothing! To make these earrings grab some paper.

I’m using deli paper, but you
can use anything, including fabric) and cover it with paint.

Draw all over it, add stenciled images, whatever makes you happy!

Fold the edge of the paper over and draw your basic earring shape.
Keep it simple.

Cut out the shape, and because of the fold, you’ll now have two matching pieces!

I like to glue my pieces to a book page for some added stability and a
bit of interest on the back.

Once the glue is dry, cut out the pieces.

Pre-heat your Melting Pot and melt some clear Ultra Thick Embossing
Enamel (UTEE) in it.

Once the UTEE is melted, place each piece into the pot and make sure
that both sides are coated with UTEE.

Pull the pieces out of the Melting Pot with tweezers (do not touch
with your fingers – the UTEE is very hot). Let some of the excess
UTEE drip off

Place the hot piece onto a Teflon sheet. It must be Teflon so that it
doesn’t permanently stick.

If you have bubbles or weird bumps you can heat them away with a
crafting heat tool. You can either do it directly on the Teflon craft
sheet, or punch a hole and suspend the piece as you heat it.

Once the pieces are cool enough to touch, you can punch a hole and set
an eyelet in the hole.

Add your earring hooks and you’re done!

Note: The UTEE will make the paper fairly water resistant, but I
wouldn’t submerge them in water.

Julie Fei-Fan Balzer is a self-taught mixed media collage artist and
avid scrapbooker. She is currently the co-host of Scrapbook Soup TV
(PBS) and beginning in January 2011 Julie will be writing a column
called “Adventures in Arting” in Cloth Paper Scissors magazine.
Julie’s hour long instructional DVD “Collage Fast & Furious” was
released in July 2010 by Interweave. She designs rubber stamps for
Stamping Bella and stencils for The Crafter’s Workshop.
Julie and her husband live in a tiny apartment with a big art studio
in the middle of New York City. She blogs her art adventures at
www.balzerdesigns.typepad.com. Follow her Twitter feed at
http://twitter.com/BalzerDesigns.