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How to make earrings with your Cricut machine,
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Cricut Ear Rings

Make earrings using your Cricut to cut out leather, suede, or faux leather and iron-on viny.
Prep Time30 minutes
Cook Time2 hours
Total Time2 hours 30 minutes
Servings: 7 Paris of Earrings
Author: Dannyelle Nicolle-Ramjist
Cost: $20

Equipment

  • Cricut cutting machine
  • Cricut Knife Blade
  • Strong Grip Mat
  • Cricut Easy Press Mini
  • leather hole punch
  • Needle Nose Pillers
  • Wire Cutters
  • sharp scissors

Ingredients

  • Leather, Suede, or Faux Leather
  • Iron-On Vinyl
  • Painter's Tape
  • Jewlery Chain
  • Earring Wires
  • Small and Medium Sized Jump Rings

Instructions

  • Start by opening a new project in Cricut design space to create your earring design. You can either choose from some of the earring projects in ready made projects, or design your own cricut cut file using simple shapes.
    To design your own, go to the shapes button on the left side on desktop, and choose one or more different shapes for your earrings. We made a few designs and used the semi-circle, square, teardrop, and arches. Play around with different sizes and combinations until you're happy with it. You might want to think about joining several shapes, as well as using different colours of genuine leather or faux leather or faux suede. Make some in larger or a smaller size, depending on your preferences.
    Rectangle Earrings: Start with a square from the free shapes and adjust to 1.5 x .43
    Teardrop Shape Earrings: Add a teardrop from the shapes and adjust to 2 inches long.
    Inverted Pinched Teardrop Earrings: Add a teardrop from the shapes and adjust to 2 inches long, rotate the shape 180 degrees.
    Arch and Semi Circle Earrings: Start with the solid arch. Duplicate and make a smaller one. Use align to centre it horizontally. Select both arches and use the slice tool to cut out the centre. Delete the extra pieces. Add a semi-circle, and rotate it 270 degrees. Make the semi-circle the same width as the width of the arch. The finished size for the arch is a height of 1.75", with a width of 1.324" and the semi-circle is 1.324 wide and 0.667 tall.
    Solid Arch Earrings: Add an arch shape from the shapes, size 2.2 x 1.45"
  • To create our iron-on vinyl overlay we started by searching for "mandala" in images. Look for ones that are not too fine and detailed because it will be really difficult to weed, when it's made small enough to fit onto an earring. The larger and chunkier the lines, the easier it will be to weed and work with.
    We choose Mandalas #M4A771F6 and also Mandalas #M4A771F6 (from Cricut Design Space).
    Once you've chosen your image lay it over your earring shape and change the colour to gold -or whatever colour you choose, and then play around with size and rotate the mandala until you're happy with the design. Next, select the mandala and the earring in the layers panel and slice. Delete the extra layers, so that you're left with the exact pattern to fit the earring.
    Once we're completely happy with the design, we'll use the duplicate button to make an exact copy so that we have a full pair of earrings cut out that match perfectly.
  • Cutting Out The Earrings
    Leather: When you're ready to make your earrings, click on the Make It button on the top of the canvas. This will bring you to the cut preview screen.
    Next you set your Base Material. Click on Browse All Materials, and type leather in the search bar. You will see lots of different leather options. Real leather varies greatly in thickness, see the tips above to get the best cut.
    Use the stronggrip purple mat for cutting leather and tape the outside of the leather onto the cricut mat with painter's tape. Take some care though, I found that some of my leather was marked by the painters tape. Either flip the leather over, or apply the tape with a very thin overlap to avoid this problem. Note that I found a more clean cut with the leather good side up. The genuine leather uses the deep cut blade, and is compatible with the Explore and the Maker.
    Faux Leather: You can also make these earrings out of faux leather. It's very similar to leather but much thinner and easier to cut. It's a great option if you'd like to make these earrings with a Cricut Joy, because you can cut it with a regular fine point blade. You can also cut the faux leather with a regular green standardgrip mat.
  • Iron-Vinyl: To cut out our iron-on vinyl, use the iron-on vinyl setting and make sure your fine point is in place. Use a standard grip green mat, and apply the vinyl backing side or shiny side down.
    Once your iron-on is cut out it's time to weed it. Use the weeding tool to remove the negative pieces from the design. This can be tricky with such small pieces, so take your time, and make sure to work in good light.
    Applying the Iron-On: We used our Cricut Easypress Mini to apply the iron-on, you can also use a household iron -see Cricut's heat guide for settings.
  • Rectangle Earrings: To put together the rectangle earrings, use the pliers to twist the direction of the earring wire, and add a medium jump ring to the top hole in the earring, along with a piece of chain. Cut two matching lengths of chain with wire cutters to your preferred length, longer or shorter than the leather rectangle.
  • Teardrop Shape Earring: To assemble the popular teardrop shape earring with the vinyl overlay, use a medium jump ring to the leather piece, and then a smaller jump ring to attach it to the earring wire.
  • Inverted Pinched Teardrop: To make the inverted teardrop earrings, you want to make two small holes at the top of your earring about 1 cm apart using the leather punch, these will be used to pinch the leather together. Cut two matching pieces of chain, slightly longer than the earring. To assemble the earring, put a medium jump ring through the first hole, the chain, the second hole, and the earring (in that order), then close the jump ring.
  • Top Arch and Bottom Semi Circle: For the earrings with the arch on top, and the semi circle on the bottom, use the leather punch to create one hole at top of the arch, and two holes at the bottom, one on each side. Take care to centre the holes, as you want the earrings to be well balanced. You can create a paper template of the earring, and fold it in half at each stop to find the exact centre spot for the holes if you want to. For the semi circle, make two holes on the flat side, lined up with where they'll attach to the arch piece.
    To put it all together, use a large jump ring at the top of the leather arch, into a small jump ring, and then into the earring wire. Next, attach the semi circle to the bottom of the arch with two large jump rings.
  • Top Semi Circle and Bottom Arch: For these earrings, start by making an earring hole in the top and bottom of the semi circle piece. You will want to take care to make sure these are centre, so that your earrings hangs well when it's put together. You can use a paper template, folded in half to help if you need to. Next punch a hole in the top of the leather arch, again right in the centre.
    Now the final step is to attach the semi circle to the earring wire with one large jump ring. Twist the ear wires to make it hang straight. Next, use another large jump ring to attach the arch to the bottom of the semi circle.
  • Solid Arch:  Use a medium jump ring in the faux leather arch, then a small jump ring to attach them to the earring wire.

Notes

Every jump ring changes the direction. If you don't want extra jump rings, you can also twist the actual earring wire. Use your small needle nose pilers and twist the direction of the hanging loop on the ear wire, if you want to avoid adding extra jump rings to turn the hanging direction of your earring. This will make more sense when you start putting the earrings together.
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