Cabochon Ring Tutorial

These rings are so addicting to make, especially since it's just so cheap to buy the cabochons and the ring bases in small bulk. Think of these as the Gothic equivalent to cupcake rings, wear a ton of them at once! I've gotten quite a few compliments on mine and people seem to be surprised when I say I made them myself. They're really quite easy to make.

Supplies

• 1 magnifying cabochon (that's the little plastic bubble thing!)
• 1 ring base
• A spoon (yes a spoon!)
• craft or tacky glue
• Scissors or X-acto knife
• Printed image

Before you can begin, you must hunt down some supplies! I buy my magnifying cabochons & ring bases from Etsy. Make sure to search under “supplies”. I tend to use 2 sizes, a larger 25x18mm and a smaller 18x13mm. My tutorial is going to be using the larger cabochon. Since Etsy's stock changes so much and is based on individual sellers, I really can't link you to the shops I use, because the supplies are not guaranteed to be there. Just do a little bit of searching and you should be fine. I think it's pretty obvious, but I should say it anyways, make sure your cabochon and ring base are the same size. If you're going for a lager ring make sure they are both 25x18.

You can use anything for the image in the ring, magazine pages, print outs, book pages, or even fabric. If you are going to print out an image, make sure you print it at the highest resolution you can. It's going to be magnified, so you're going to be seeing pixels if you don't. For this tutorial I used a Ray Caesar image from a magazine. If you are using someone else's art work for your rings, DON'T SELL THEM. Seriously, that's lame. I use art from some of my favorite artists, but I just wear them for my own enjoyment or give them away to friends. I'm not making any money off of other people's hard work, and neither should you.

Your first step is to decide where you want to place the cabochon. What may seem like a good idea at first might end up a little bit wonky looking due to the magnification of the cabochon, play around with where you want to place it.

Once you've found just what you want to be on your ring, cover the area in a layer of glue. It looks like a whole lot of glue, but you're really going to want to make sure there aren't any air bubbles between the paper and the cabochon.

On a firm surface, press the cabochon down onto the glue, until you can see a faint image underneath. Don't worry, it drys clear! Put your glue and plastic mess somewhere out of the way, where it can dry overnight.

Once it's dry cut the extra paper and glue off.

Put a little bit of glue on your ring base. Not whole lot! You don't want it seeping out over the side. I use tacky glue for all my gluing. It might not always be the strongest glue, just don't pick at your ring and you should be fine. I've tried Aleene's jewelry glue, which is like a thick super glue, and found that no matter what I do, I end up with lots of little air bubbles.

Press the cabochon onto the ring base, and now set that somewhere to dry over night.

When this layer of glue is finally dry, use the bottom of a spoon to gently push the little metal things against the cabochon. This will keep it in there a bit more securely than the glue alone. You're only pushing the metal things that the cabochon sits inside.

And there you go! You have a finished ring! I tend to make these to match favorite outfits of mine. I have a bunch of rings made with religious imagery to match my BtSSB Virgin Mary and Stand Glass pieces, a Meta nurse cross to go with my Guro Lolita outfit, and a few Sanrio and San-x characters to go with my few Sweet Lolita pieces.