I recently made some oak earrings as a birthday gift for a friend and I thought they were perfect for another Winter Solstice Tutorial. These are lovely, easy-to-make gifts for a grove member or tree-loving friend!
Materials:
- The oak leaf pattern (you may need to adjust the size)
- Two colors of felt that look nice together
- Four buttons that go with the color scheme (I used buttons with two holes)
- Sterling silver, gold, or surgical steel jewelry supplies – two mini rings and two French hooks
- thread that works with your selected color scheme (I chose brown thread to match my brown buttons)
- A needle
- Scissors
- Two pliers to open and close the mini ring
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| Supplies |
Your first step is to make the pattern the size you want. Because one of the leaves is to be smaller, these work best as medium to large sized earrings. Cut the pattern out, trace onto the felt, and cut the shapes out of the fabric.
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| You’ll have four layers: button, small leaf, large leaf, button. Maybe a little hard to see…. |
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| Almost done! Ignore the paint stains on the cutting board… |
Don’t tie and cut the thread off yet. Push your needle through the button and up to the top of the large leaf. Put the leaves aside and use two pliers to open a mini ring. Insert into the ring of the French hook and close the mini ring with the pliers. Take your leaves and use the needle and thread to attach the ring. Reinforce several times. Repeat these steps to create the second earring.
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| And you’re done! |
The finished pair will look like this! My friend really liked the pair I gave her and already knew of a matching sweater. I went with a green, yellow, and brown color scheme, but green and red would work as Solstice colors. Alternatively, you could make one as a Solstice ornament and attach to the top of a wrapped package.
Author M. A. Phillips 