Earrings

“I am the type of person who loves earrings in any size, shape, material and color and I am truly hurt when I see a pair of earrings that sticks in my mind and I can’t buy them because I can’t find them anywhere, on websites or in stores, or as it happens I find them but they turn out to be cheap imitations of what I was looking for.

My great passion right now are peridot shamrock earrings and they have become my main focus. I buy them whenever I get the chance, from stores, from subway vendors, on the street, from people I know and even from fairs when I go out hunting for various pieces of jewelry.

It doesn’t even matter what I am wearing or where I am going as long as I am wearing a pair of my peridot shamrock earrings. Friends immediately know what to buy for me whenever an occasion arises, whether it is my birthday, Christmas or some other celebration, so in no time my collection reaches some hard to imagine numbers. All that I require when it comes to peridot shamrock earrings is that the stone be visible enough and the shape not too abstract. The greener the stone, the better.

I will not write here about what there is to buy on the internet because I have often remained with my eyes glued to the screen, thinking of buying one of those pairs, since the prices were more than good, but when I ordered, there were problems with deliveries, with the payment or with the quality of the products.

I will say this, however: as I was browsing the internet, looking for my new pair of peridot shamrock earrings, I thought to myself that I should start making such earrings on my own. Therefore, last week I have ordered online, from a specialized website, an earring making kit, and today I am the proud owner of the tools to make all the shamrock earrings I want. All I need is some skill and some peridot fragments. I won’t succeed at the first try, but hey, practice makes perfect, right?”.

If these sounded to you like the words of someone who is addicted to peridot shamrock earrings, then you are right. They are.

I am no saying that peridot shamrock earrings are not beautiful. They are. But I only used this example to point out a tendency that needs to be kept in a constant check-up. In the adapted words of Tyler Durden, “you are not your peridot shamrock earrings”. All you need to know is that you are beautiful in many ways, as you are, and you do not need to develop obsessions over accessories or earrings, even if they are, indeed, peridot shamrock earrings, because all this does is cause you to waste your money on a false self-image. When the earrings are gone you will once again stop feeling beautiful and you should not. It is you who makes the earrings look beautiful, not the other way around. Actually, it’s more like a synergy between you, your clothes, earrings, attitude and so on. So the central piece, here, is you. Nothing else.

If you feel like you have read every book there is to read, watched every movie there is to watch or if you feel like you know every mall in a 50 mile radius by heart, then, my friend, you need a new hobby. When you choose a hobby, you have a multitude of options, from stamp collection to building rockets and from learning foreign languages to cooking in a style that would even make Jamie Oliver bow his head.

So, if nothing else “tickles your fancy”, if you keep messing up at pottery or your cat goes Godzilla on your matchstick city, you could try learning how to do paper mache earrings.

Making paper mache jewelry is a fun way to spend your time, and the results are unique and really easy to be obtained. You can make custom items that define you as a person or your philosophy in life, or you can ask your friends what shape of jewelry they would like to wear and surprise them on birthdays, Christmas and other occasions. In addition, if you learn how to do paper mache earrings, you will find new uses for the small or vast amounts of paper you have lying around your home.

If you want to start making paper mache earrings, you need some uncoated paper, a pot, some glue, a small puncturing instrument (such as a screwdriver or some other type of small drill), some scissors, a blender, some coloring (depending on your desired results you can use oil paint, markers, nail polish, makeup, whatever), some translucent coating (usually clear nail polish or some lacquer) and something to scrape, preferably a nail file or, even better, some sand paper, which you can find at your local crafts or hardware store. The sand paper needs to be with fine grains, so as not to damage the surface of the jewelry.

Once you have obtained the materials, you need to follow some simple steps. First take the piece of paper and tear it into small bits, then put the paper in very hot water and leave it there for a long period of time, preferably 8 or so hours, or over night. Then, take the pieces out of the water and squeeze them to remove the excess water, after which you put the paper and some glue in a blender and stir it up for some 3 minutes.

After that, take the pieces of paper from the mixture and mold them into little balls, then put them on a platter and pop them in the microwave for about 3 minutes. After you complete the “nuking”, place the balls somewhere where they can cool down, and repeat this action until they are completely dry to the touch. Remember to keep an eye on them while they are in the microwave, as paper tends to catch fire. After this, you should leave the balls for about a day, roughly 24 hours, to make sure they are completely dry, then you make a small hole through the middle. Use the sand paper to smooth out any edges, color the balls to your liking, leave them to dry and then apply the protective lacquer coating. After the coating dries, you can pass some thread or ribbons through the pieces of jewelry and enjoy the results.

There are many people who choose clip-on earrings against the piercing type. This is mainly due to the fact that their holes have developed infections or have closed up. Also, there are the people who prefer not to puncture holes in their bodies, out of fear or out of conviction.

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These people soon learn how to make clip earrings out of pierced earrings. This skill, which is easy to learn and also easy to master, becomes very useful when you see a pair of pierced earrings that you like but, alas, you are unable to wear, for one of the reasons mentioned above. This is where you put on your arts&crafts cap and get to work. I have searched the internet for ways to achieve this goal and here I will try to briefly list the things you need to do.

So here is how to make clip earrings out of pierced earrings:

The first thing you need to do is seek a craft store near you, which should not be too hard to find. Then, after pinpointing a store, search for jewelry making instruments, or maybe kits, and also materials. For materials you will basically need clip earring backs and converters, which are used for dangle earrings and you can also use them when making the average clip earring.

If you want to transform a dangle earring using clip earring converters, you need the type of converters that have an additional small hoop on the frontal part. For this, you need an instrument like pliers, the kind used by jewelers, which you should find in the crafts store. Using this tool, spread out the hoop and insert the piece you want to use from the pierced earring. Then, close the hoop.

Go out and by the clip earring that has a hoop, which you is basically a thin metal circle on which you can hang all types of pieces of earring and obtain the look of a pierced earring.

When you are trying to convert a pierced earring of the common type, the kind that has a post, and you are trying to use a clip converter that comes with a small cylinder on its back, all you have to do is insert the at the top of the tube and then slightly bend the post in away that allows the earring to face out. However, keep in mind that this method can only be used for bigger earrings, since smaller pieces will make the converter noticeable. Also, you should check that the post is fastened in the back of the earring before you try to bend it.

You can also buy a sticky converter for clip earrings, the kind where you glue the converter on and wear it as such. For this, you need to eliminate the post from the earring and replace it by applying a clip back using an adhesive tab.

Also, I have found some useful tips that need to be considered. First, you need some cushion pads if you intend to wear clip earrings for longer intervals, since this protects your earlobe from that small but annoying pain you feel after a while. Second, I have read somewhere that this hobby can be useful for people who have arthritis or whose fingers have limited dexterity.