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The Clay Hole University · Project Guides

Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and PendantsPrintable pottery guide

Everything gets less forgiving as a piece gets smaller. The thicknesses, the hole that has to survive a kiln, the drying, and the way to glaze something that has no foot to stand on.

$5.005 guides, 1 free
  • Skill level: Beginner
  • 36 printable pages
  • 12 video picks
  • 7-question quiz + answer key

Flip through the free sample
  • Instant download
  • Prints on any home printer
  • The full lesson stays free online
The printable, at a glance

What is the Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants printable guide?

It is a printable workbook edition of The Clay Hole University’s free “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” lesson. Nothing in it is a new skill. It is rolling, cutting, joining, drying, glazing and firing, exactly as you already do them, and the only thing that changes is how much room for error you have left. A mug forgives a lot. A quarter inch of clay with a hole through it forgives almost nothing. The guide takes it in order: which clay and what its shrinkage does to a hole, four ways to form a piece small enough to wear, the nine step hole that decides whether finished work survives, drying something the size of a coin without curling it, surface, glazing a piece that has no foot, what a firing costs, and the findings that turn a fired shape into something somebody actually wears. On paper it adds a shrinkage log, a bench card, a printed quiz with a full answer key, and a glossary.

Prefer to read it online first? The “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” lesson is free, and always will be.

  • 36printable pages, US Letter
  • 7quiz questions, with a full answer key
  • 12hand-picked videos, each with a QR code
  • 18glossary terms in plain language
  • 2workbook pages you fill in yourself
Why a printable, for this one

You will make twenty of these in an afternoon

Jewelry is the one project where you are not making a thing, you are running an experiment, twenty times over, in a single sitting. That is the whole reason to do it: a mug takes a month to tell you whether you dried it right and a pendant tells you in three days, and you can have twenty of them telling you at once.

Twenty pieces is also twenty chances to get the same small thing wrong. The hole punched at the size you want it to end up rather than one size bigger. The hole an eighth of an inch too close to the edge. The uncovered first night that lifts every edge on the board. None of those announce themselves until the work is finished, glazed and beautiful, which is the worst possible moment to find out.

So the things worth having written down are all numbers and orders of operation: how thick to roll, when to punch, how far from the edge, what to check at bone dry, what has to be bone clean before a piece goes in a kiln. They fit on a page you can prop up next to the board, and a page does not need a dry thumb.

Look inside

Real pages, for a board covered in small shapes

These are actual pages from the guide, shown here with the sample watermark. The full guide has none.

  • Page 6 of the “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” printable guide: which clay, and what shrinkage does to a hole, shown with the sample watermark
    Which clay, and what shrinkage does to a holeWhat a batch really costs, why shrinkage suddenly matters at this size, and the start of the eight body table that gives a published figure for each clay.
  • Page 12 of the “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” printable guide: nine steps to a hole that survives, shown with the sample watermark
    Nine steps to a hole that survivesThree of the twelve video picks, then the section that names the four ways a hole fails and starts on the nine steps that stop it.
  • Page 23 of the “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” printable guide: nine things that go wrong, shown with the sample watermark
    Nine things that go wrongThe last of the wearability cards, then the troubleshooting table: each fault with what actually happened and what to do differently.
  • Page 25 of the “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” printable guide: the shrinkage log, shown with the sample watermark
    The shrinkage logTen pieces, measured wet and measured again out of the glaze firing, so you end up with your own number rather than the one on the bag.
Flip through the free sampleTen pages, free, no email required.
Paper beats the screen here

Your hands are covered in slip and there are forty pieces on the board

This is a project made of small numbers repeated many times, and the numbers arrive at the exact moment your hands are least able to touch anything.

  • It holds still

    A video hands you fourteen things in eleven minutes and then it is over. Nobody has scrubbed back through it with a wet thumb to find the bit about how far the hole goes from the edge. A page waits.

  • The numbers are the technique

    An eighth of an inch for earrings, a quarter for pendants, an eighth of an inch between the hole and the edge, one size up on the punch. Four figures, printed once, glanced at forty times.

  • The order is the other half

    Rib both faces, cut at soft leather hard, punch while soft, clean the burr, cover for a night, then sandwich. Miss one and nothing complains until the piece is finished.

  • You are going to do it again

    Twenty pieces is one batch. A log of what the clay was, what you punched and what came out of the kiln turns a second batch into something you can actually read.

How the guide is built

Built for a board full of small work, not a four minute demonstration

Every guide in the series is designed as a workbook first and a document second. For this one, that means:

  • A learning dashboard before page one

    What you will learn, what is on the table, the mistakes that get made first, and what finished work looks like when it has gone right.

  • Two shrinkage tables, checked against the makers

    Eight clay bodies with each maker’s own published figure, and then what that figure does to a hole at four different punch sizes, in millimeters.

  • The nine step hole

    The hole is the first decision you make, not a detail you add at the end. Nine steps from where it goes to the last check after the bisque, which is the last easy chance you get.

  • Glazing something with no foot

    A pot has a foot and a pendant does not, so whichever face you lay down is the face that has to be bone clean. Six ways out of that, including the one that lets you glaze a piece all over.

  • Videos you can reach from a printed page

    Twelve videos from ten makers, each with a note on why it is worth your time and a code that goes straight to it.

  • Plain words for the jargon

    A glossary written the way we would explain it standing next to you, from bail and burr to grog and wax resist.

Why the University is free

The lesson is free. It always will be.

All of the teaching in this guide comes from the free “Ceramic Jewelry: Earrings, Beads and Pendants” lesson at The Clay Hole University. No paywall, no sign-up, no catch.

Jewelry is the cheapest lesson in this building, and I do not mean in money. A mug takes you a month to find out whether you dried it right. A pendant tells you in three days, and you can have twenty of them telling you at once.

You are not really making earrings. You are finding out what your clay does when you take away every bit of margin, and once you know that, everything else you make gets better.

The University is free and stays free. The guides are the version rebuilt for paper with an unreasonable amount of care, and buying one keeps the free side going. Thank you. Genuinely.

Dan Pearce, founder of The Clay Hole
Collect them

Build a little pottery library

Every guide carries a permanent number. This one is 08.05, in the project guides section, alongside tiles, mosaics and everything else worth making on purpose. The number never changes and never gets reused, so a shelf of them stays in order.

Put any five printable guides in your cart and the cheapest one is on us. Put in nine and the two cheapest are on us. It happens automatically at checkout, no code to remember.

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Where this leads

What to read once the first batch comes out

These lessons pick up where this one leaves off. Each one is free to read now.

Good questions

Before you buy

Is this different from the free lesson?
The teaching is the same, and the free lesson is complete. The printable adds a shrinkage log for your first batch, a bench card for the board, a printed quiz with an answer key that explains every answer, and a glossary.
Do I need a wheel or any special equipment?
No. A fist of clay, something to roll it flat, a cutter, and something that punches a clean hole, which can be a drinking straw. The one thing worth buying is a nichrome bead rack if you are going to do this more than once, and the guide says why.
How thick should I roll?
An eighth of an inch for earrings and a quarter for pendants and buttons, and the guide explains both ends of that: thinner snaps in a bag, thicker drags on an earlobe.
Why do my holes close up or fill with glaze?
Because the hole was punched at the size it needed to end up. Everything shrinks between 10 and 13.9 percent and then glaze lands inside the hole as well. The guide gives the shrinkage for eight clay bodies and a table of what four punch sizes actually measure afterwards.
How do I glaze something that has no foot to stand on?
That is the problem the whole glazing section exists for. There are six ways out of it, and the one that lets you glaze a piece completely, all over, is a wire through the hole it already has.
Why does my jewelry warp?
One face dried faster than the other, and almost always on the uncovered first night. The fix takes no skill at all and the guide gives it as five steps in order.
Can I use polymer clay techniques?
Some of them, and the internet will not tell you which. Cutting, stamping, texture sheets and marbling all translate. Anything that relies on polymer staying soft, baking in a domestic oven, or being sanded after curing does not. The guide draws that line.
Do you sell the findings?
No, and the guide says so plainly and tells you what to buy instead. Two pairs of pliers, jump rings, ear wires and a length of chain is under twenty dollars from any craft store and it will finish dozens of pieces.
I am not at The Clay Hole. Is it still useful?
Yes. It needs clay, a rolling pin and a kiln you can get to. The pages about our own clay and our own firing prices are marked as ours and carry the date they were true, and the shrinkage method works on whatever is on your shelf.
Do I need a fancy printer?
No. It is designed for an ordinary home or office printer on regular US Letter paper, with nothing important near the edges, so normal printer margins cut nothing off.
Can I print it in black and white?
Yes. Nothing depends on color, and we looked at the workbook pages in grayscale to be sure.
Can I use it on an iPad or laptop instead?
Yes. Every QR code in the guide is also a tappable link, so on a screen you just tap instead of scanning.
How do I get it after I buy?
Right after checkout you get a download link by email and on your order confirmation page. Each link works up to seven times.
What if the guide gets updated?
Every edition carries a version number on its cover and on its last page. When we correct or improve one, the new edition replaces the old, and the code on the last page takes you to whatever the latest version is.

Print it, and go and cut up a whole slab

Roll one slab and cut the entire thing into shapes. Punch every hole one size up while the clay is still soft, cover them loosely for a night, and log ten of them wet. Six will be wrong and it will not matter, which is the first time in pottery that is true.

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Pottery is wonderfully unpredictable. It also carries real risk.

We work hard to make The Clay Hole University accurate, useful, practical, and ridiculously thorough. But pottery is a hands-on craft involving countless variables that no written guide can completely control or anticipate.

Depending on what you are doing, ceramics may involve extreme heat, kilns, electricity, gas, flame, sharp tools, spinning machinery, heavy equipment, pressurized equipment, silica-containing dust, fumes, chemicals, raw materials, stains, oxides, glazes, combustible materials, hot surfaces, breakable objects, and other hazards capable of causing serious injury, illness, property damage, fire, or worse.

These guides are provided for general educational and informational purposes. They are not a substitute for hands-on training, competent supervision, your studio’s safety procedures, applicable laws or codes, Safety Data Sheets, or the instructions and warnings supplied by the manufacturers of your clay, glaze, chemicals, tools, kilns, equipment, protective gear, or other materials.

Studios, kilns, clay bodies, glazes, firing schedules, electrical systems, ventilation systems, equipment, environmental conditions, application thicknesses, material formulations, and individual techniques vary enormously. Something that works beautifully in one situation may fail spectacularly in another. That is part of pottery. Occasionally, it is a very expensive part of pottery.

You are responsible for determining whether any technique, material, combination, firing schedule, tool, or process described in a guide is appropriate and safe for your specific circumstances before using it.

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Terms version 2026-09-19b