I like simple crafts. I love easy Valentine’s Day crafts. The hearts, pink and red colors and occasional glitter – it speaks to me. That’s why I made these simple marbled heart pendants using polymer clay. If you’ve never made a polymer clay necklace, you need to try it. They’re perfect for valentine’s day or just to wear any day of the week.
Did you know that you can create an awesome marbled look with polymer clay? This helps you make a ton of fun things such as a DIY heart shaped pendant!
You can give them to friends or teachers or even make the cord shorter for a cute little bookmark.
It’s versatile and adorable. Did I mention they’re easy to make?
What else do you want in a craft?
How to Make DIY Polymer Clay Necklaces
You really don’t need much to make this craft either. Red and White polymer clay, a knife or heart cutter and some necklace cording is all it really requires. Well…. and a working oven, which I forgot that I didn’t have that day but friends came to my rescue.
I used Sculpey clay. There’s a lot of different brands available but I’ve used Sculpey many times before and I like the colors and how well they hold when baked.
First Step: Marble the Polymer Clay
To make these pendants you’re going to carefully mix the clay without over mixing it. The clay comes cut into 1/4ths. Each pendant took about half of one piece of each color. It’s also fun to experiement with different ratios. More white will give you a pinker pendant. More red will give you a really vibrant pendant. Most importantly, work with small amounts of clay at a time. Everytime you roll it out you will have to re-knead it and you’ll loose the marbled effect. I cut one heart out of every roll and then put the rest of that section to the side to use on some encouragement hearts.
Start by briefly kneading the small section of clay to warm it up and make it soft.
Push the two rolls up against each other and roll them gently on your surface.
Next fold them over, roll some more, and then fold them over again.
Keep repeating this process until you can see the marbling starting to appear.
See how the colors are mixing but you can still see some of the white and red? It’s time to get your roll on.
Grab a small rolling pin and gently roll the clay flat to about 1/4th of an inch. Some I did a little flatter and they held up well.
Let’s just take a second of silence to appreciate those gorgeous colors mixed together.
At this point if you were in the craft store and didn’t forget to buy a very small heart shaped cutter – found in the same aisle as the clay – use that to cut out hearts.
Second Step: Cut into heart shaped pendants
However if you’re me than you forgot to buy one along with forgetting to buy toilet paper, now’s a time to get out a knife. The best one to use would be an exacto knife but I hid all the blades from my kids. Which means that I couldn’t find them either. So I got out my old trust kitchen knife that I now use for crafts and it worked just fine. If you have a cutter than go to town, just cutting away. But if you are using any form of a knife, outline your heart in the clay before you start cutting. It’s easier to fix mistakes before you do a final cut. Cut your hearts out. If there’s any rough or jagged edges – tap the clay quickly and lightly with your finger to smooth it out! You can also gently roll the edges on a flat surface.
Use a straw or pencil to gently poke a hole on one side of the heart.
Isn’t this easy so far? It just gets easier.
The great thing about cutting out the shapes yourself is that you can do all a lot of different sizes.
Third Step: Bake and String!
Once your hearts are done you’re going to lay them on a flat baking sheet and bake them in the oven at 275 degrees for 15 minutes. Once they cool they should be hard.
Grab the necklace cording and cut off a length to fit over your head plus a little extra. Knot the ends together and then make a loop on the other end. Push the loop through the hole in the pendant and through the middle of the cord. Pull it tight and your necklace is ready!
I love how they turned out. They are so gorgeous yet so simple.
And the colors vary from pinks to reds and back to pink again.
And those scraps you had from making these? Don’t worry – I have a plan for those.
The smudges are courtesy of wet dog nose. God loves them as they are too.
If you want to make a glitter necklace, check out the DIY Easy Glitter Necklace or The Floating Glitter Necklace using resin tutorials.
If you want an even easier Valentine’s Day Craft, check out the Heart Tote Bag tutorial.
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