Refurbished Earrings

Have I mentioned how much I adore cheap things?

I know, everyone loves a deal, but I feel like my relationship with cheap and discounted stuff goes deeper.

That's why I had a minor freak-out when I saw these at Target for 36 cents.

Yes, that's right.  Cents.

The reason they were so cheap was that one of the gaudy blue ones was broken.  But that's fine.  I'm not a glittery sparkly kinda person.  Whenever I get clothes with rhinestones on them I end up picking them off.  I figured I could do something with those earrings, though, and worse case scenario I had a cute pair of flower studs.

 Here's what I ended up doing.  I've seen a lot of earrings like this lately, and they're really simple to make (especially when you already have the basic shape).

 First, I knotted my string of choice around the top of the wire earring.  Tie tight and trim the string.

Then I strung beads on the green string.  I decided they'd be a cool detail, and my roommate (who was half asleep throughout the entire craft time) said it would be okay.  I'm still not sure about how the beads make it all look, but obviously I decided to go with it.









Bring the string straight down and wrap around the bottom of the wire earring, through the hoop space.














You're going to then bring it back up the back and wrap around again.

 When you decide there must be a bead, just leave it where you want it while wrapping.  I almost did them randomly (what am I saying, almost?  I remade this earring dozens of times before I decided this was it), but then decided to add a bead every other wrap around.  It sort of made a paisley design that I dig.

 Wrapping, and wrapping, and wrapping...

And here it is!  All wrapped up!  Just tie another knot at the top and you're set.

 I think mine is much more wearable.  I like the fuller look of it.  Nicole told me it looks very hippy, and when I was modeling it I was wearing a necklace that she decided to critique.  That girl gets very critique-ie when she gets back from class...

I'm happy with how they turned out.  When modeling them, however, I came to the realization that I really don't wear earrings frequently.  Maybe these sweet pieces of bling will change that!

And here's the reason Nicole came back so late tonight.  How cool is it that she's taking glass blowing?  She comes home and cranks up the AC because of it, but I feel like that's fine as long as she keeps bringing awesome stuff back into the apartment.  I'm a fool for the whale, and am impressed at her attempted apple-turned-bell-pepper.

Leave me some love in the comments!  Any ideas of how to make these earrings WITHOUT cheating by using a broken earring form?