How to Make Fingerprint Jewelry

Fingerprint jewelry is popular in 2010 because it's the ultimate keepsake jewelry. Imagine transforming your children's fingerprint impressions into metallic pendants that you wear around your neck, or making individual charms and attaching them to a bracelet. Creating your own fingerprint jewelry doesn't involve special training or expensive equipment. You can make it right at your kitchen table.

Things You'll Need

• Polymer clay
• Wax paper
• 1/2-inch diameter, 6-inch long dowel
• Metal circle cutting tool
• Hole cutting tool
• Baker's parchment
• Filter mask
• Metal powder
• Artist brush
• Oven
• Glaze
• Jump rings
• Chain or cord
• Pliers

Instructions

1. Condition a small ball of polymer clay by working it in your hand to warm it up so the clay is more pliable.

2. Lay a sheet of wax paper on the table and set the conditioned clay on it. Use a wood dowel as a rolling pin to roll out the clay to an even 1/8-inch thickness for a pendant.

3. Press a finger into the clay and move it gently from side to side to create a good fingerprint impression. Center a metal cutting tool that is the diameter of the finished pendant over the fingerprint impression and press it down into the clay to cut out the clay pendent. Remove excess clay from around the cut pendant. Create a small hole at the top of the pendant using a clay hole cutting tool--hand tools that come in different diameters for cutting clean, round holes in clay.

4. Lay the fingerprint pendant on a piece of baker's parchment paper. Allow to harden for a couple of hours.

5. Put on a filter mask and open a jar of real metal powder. Dip a soft, fluffy, round, all natural bristle artist's paint brush into the powder and brush the metal powder over the clay. Work the powder in between the ridges of the fingerprint. Coat the front, back and edges of the pendant.

6. Place the piece of baker's parchment with the pendent resting on it in a toaster oven or regular oven. Bake according to the clay manufacturer's directions.

7. Allow the fingerprint pendant to cool. Glaze the pendant by brushing or dipping to seal the metallic powder to the polymer clay.

8. Thread a metal jump ring through the small hole at the top of the pendant. A jump ring is a tiny metal ring with a slit in it that's used to join various components of a piece of jewelry together. Spread open the jump ring and pass one end through the hole in the pendant. Put a necklace chain or cord inside the jump ring before pinching it closed with a pair of pliers.

Tips & Warnings

• Use metal shape cutting tool kits to create your own clay cutters.

• Dip the cutting edge of the circle cutter in water or vegetable oil before pressing it into the clay. This will help the clay release from the cutter.

• Always wear a filter mask when working with metallic powders. The powder is light and flies up in the air easily. If you breathe it, it'll lodge in your lungs.

References

• Glass Attic: All Metallic Powders
• The Polymer Clayspot: Polymer Clay FAQ

Resources

• Glass Attic: Shape Cutters