Jack O’ Lantern Earrings – Free Tutorial for Paper Quilled Halloween Earrings

Four years ago I started my Etsy shop.  As I was designing my earrings I came up with a couple designs for Halloween.  You can see them, along with some of my other earlier designs (some of which I have retired, others which I have altered, and some which I still make the same!) in this post.

The Halloween earring that I designed was a simple Jack O’ Lantern, with a solid base.   It is now more than four years later and I am excited to share that pattern so that more people can make these simple yet cute earrings for themselves!

*If you haven’t checked out the witch hat earrings tutorial yet, click here to see it!

*note*  If you need beginner quilling instructions, check out this post before continuing.

Jack O’ Lantern Pumpkin Earrings Instructions:

Supplies:

• two 72″ strips of orange paper (I glued together three 24″ strips) – 1/8″ (3mm) width
• two 3″ strips of green paper –  1/8″ (3mm) width
• four 1 1/2″ strips of green paper – 1/8″ (3mm) width
• one 24″ strip of black paper  –  narrow (1/16″, 1.5mm) width – for eyes and mouth

• glue (My favorite is PPA which you can find at Custom Quilling, or here on Amazon)
• sealant for making your earrings water resistant (click here to read more about different sealants)
• 2 small jump rings (mine are 3mm inner diameter)
• 2 medium jump rings (mine are 4mm inner diameter)
• 2 earring hooks

• slotted quilling tool (here at Custom Quilling, or here on Amazon)
• fine tip tweezers (you can find them at Custom Quilling, or on Amazon)

Notes

• I used 1/8″ width for the base and top of the earrings, and narrow for the face pieces.  You can also use 1/8″ for the face pieces if you’d prefer.

Instructions:

• First you will need to prepare your strips.  Roll the 72″ strip into a tight roll as shown here and glue the end tight.  Notice that the end of the roll is ripped, as it glues down more smoothly that way.

• Take the 24″ strip of black narrow paper and rip it into six 3″ strips (there should be one 6″ strip left).  Roll each 3″ strip into a tiny tight roll.  Pinch it into a teardrop, then press the bottom of the teardrop flat to make a triangle.  You will have to use your fingernails to pinch all three corners tightly to shape it correctly.

• Fold the remaining 6″ strand in half.  Spread glue along half of it, and fold it in half.  Allow it to fully dry, then cut the pieces for the mouth.  Each mouth needs a longer piece for the bottom and a shorter for the top.  The measurements are shown for the pieces I cut.  Yours can be shorter for a smaller mouth or longer for a larger mouth.  Curve the longer bottom piece for each mouth around the end of your quilling tool to make it into a curved shape.  Dab glue on each end of the curved shape and place the smaller straight piece on the top.  Hold it for a minute until it dries enough to hold and then lay it down to dry fully.  Alternatively you can use a tweezers to dip each separate piece into glue and

• Time to assemble your Jack O’ Lanterns!  Squeeze a bit of glue onto a surface (I like using a plastic surface), pick up each piece with the tweezers, dip into the glue, and place onto the orange base.

• Now you need to add a top to your Jack O’ Lantern to make it into earrings (or you can just add a magnet to your Jack O’ Lantern or glue it onto a post for post earrings as well).  There are several ways to add a top to dangle earrings.  Click here to read a post showing several ways to do this.  For this pair I decided to do the three circles on top, as the wrap around method wouldn’t look as good on a Jack O’ Lantern.

• You will need to add sealant to make sure your earrings are sturdy and water resistant.  There are many sealants that you can use!  Check these posts for some tips on sealants.  Some sealants will be liquid (such as Ceramcoat Sealer, click here to read my review and tips about it) while others will be more thick.  Some thicker ones you can mix with water to make them thinner (like Diamond Glaze – click here to read my review and tips about it), while for some that doesn’t lead to a good finish.  I am experimenting to see which ones work with this method.  If you use a liquidy sealant you can dip the earrings in as shown here.  Use tweezers, flip the piece over a couple times (make sure it is fully dry before you put on the sealant!) , set on a tissue for about 10 seconds and then place on a plastic surface to dry (move it around on the plastic surface a couple times in the first 10 minutes or so so that no sealant pools underneath.  If you are using a thicker sealant you’ll need to do one side at a time and use a paintbrush to apply it or squeeze it carefully.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial!  As always, I’d love to hear back from you if you try it out, and please comment with a link to your work so I can see it, or send me a message!

Stick around and check out some of the other fun stuff on the blog!

Click here to view more free paper quilling tutorials!

Click here to view paper quilling tips and tricks!

Click here to view a list of places to buy quilling supplies around the world!

Click here to view some of my own quilling projects, with tips so you can make your own if you’d like!

*All products and supplies mentioned in this post I purchased and/or made on my own.

*This post contains some affiliate links, and some non affiliate links.  If you purchase products through the affiliate links I get a small percentage (at no extra cost to you!).  I only link to products that I believe in and/or love to use myself.  Thank you for supporting my blog!