Measuring Tape Loop Earrings

So I recently finished high school. The exams were pretty tough, but deciding on what earrings to make various teachers as gifts may have been slightly tougher. With Christmas coming up, these earrings would be a great gift for someone creatoive and a tad eccentric like my history teacher, or just make them for yourself.

You Will Need:

• Fabric measuring tape

•  Scissors

•  a Nail or some other sharp object

•  a Hammer

•  a scrap plank or board

•  Basic hooks (See Vocab Tab)

•  Round-nosed Pliers (See Vocab Tab)

How To:

Take the fabric measuring tape and cut off the metal end, then cut off two equal lengths. I made mine from 10cm each. I wanted mine to show mostly the centimeter side because we're South African, but as you can see both sides show.

Lay whichever side you want to see more of facing up and then move one end sideways until it's on top of the other end. This forms the slightly twisted teardrop shape because I thought that a plain hoop would be less effective. 

Hold the ends in place and put the loop on the scrap plank or board. This plank will give you something to hammer the nail into so that you don't damage the surface underneath, but it won't be necessary if you can think of a better way to punch a hole into the top of the earring. Carefully place the point of the nail where you want to punch the hole, bearing in mind that you're going to cut the edge to make it smoothe and you don't want it to tear, and hammer it in. Not all the way, but just enough to punch a hole.

Leave the earring impaled on the nail while you cut the top edges smooth, bearing in mind once again that if the hole is too close to the top it will tear. take the earring off and then use the round-nosed pliers to attach the basic hook to the earring. 

Rating:

Effort Required: 4/10

They don't take long to make, but it can be quite frustrating to direct the curved hook loop through the tiny hole. Overall there are more challenging earrings to make.

Durability: 8/10

The plus side is that fabric measuring tape is vinyl covered fibreglass, it was made for strength. Who knew sewing could be so hardcore? These are waterproof and super resistant, though I cannot vouch for their fireproofing abilities. The only problem is tearing. One of these tore and I had to make a new one, so just be careful.

Cool Factor: 7/10

These earrings are pretty cool. They're difinately qwerky and original, not to mention that measuring tape comes in all kinds of awesome designs and pretty colours. This is a great way to own your love for craft and sewing and a great gift for someone with these traits.

Let us know what you think! Your input is greatly appreciated, so let us know if you have any comments, challenges, suggestions or feedback of any sort. We want to see your finished product!  If you like what you see then please follow us and if you want to keep up to date on our latest posts, follow My Earring Board on Pinterest. Thanks for taking the time to view our blog!

Wooden Cut Out Earrings

I would love to have a laser cutter to make earrings in any shape my mind can conceive but such a thing goes against everything we stand for on this blog. We use what we have.

These material-covered wooden cut-outs are cheaply and abundantly available at craft shops. The beauty of these is that you can improve them with a little paint, decoupage or even a fine liner. These were originally plain red butterflies and look at them now! They're plain red butterflies with patterns on!

You will need:

• Two wooden cut-outs in the desired shape, decorated however you see fit.
• A drill with a 1 mm bit
• Two loop-end wire pins (See vocab Tab)
• Round-nosed pliers (See vocab Tab)
• Two basic earring hooks (See vocab Tab)

Method:

Drill a hole in the appropriate section of each of your shapes. Just make sure the hole is in the same place for both earrings.

Push the end of the wire pin through the hole so that there is about 7.5 mm sticking out. Bend the main section of the pin upwards to create a right-angle and then bend the sticky-out bit up behind the shape until it meets the main pin and forms a kind of triangle with it.

Attach the basic hook to the loop at the the top of the pin and then check the direction and angle the earring hangs at. If you're not happy with it you can change the angle by bending the wire pin, or the direction the earring faces, by holding the loop at the top of the pin secure with the pliers and slowly turning the shape to rotate the loop until it's facing the right direction.

Rating:

Effort Required: 3/10

Working with wire is like holding a newborn baby: it's easy once you learn how to make sure it doesn't bend in the wrong places.

Durability: 9/10

It's always nice to be able to put on earrings without having to worry about the weather. 

Cool Factor: 5.5/10

Don't get me wrong; they're nice, light, practical, big enough to be noticed and subtle enough not to be weird. They match well. You can make them unique and own a whole bunch in various colours, sizes and shapes. In some ways they are actually the perfect DIY earrings. In other ways though, meh.

Pretty Bow Earrings

Remember me? I know it's been a LONG time since I've posted, but I've had a lot of things going on. I'm afraid it may be a while before you hear from me again, I am in a brief period of holidays before I begin writing my finals. Also, my older sister has moved to Poland. She will no longer be gracing us with her posts. I have one or two in the archives, but I'm afraid that from now on you're stuck with me.

 You Will Need:

• Two pretty bows. Choose the colour, type, pattern and size according to preference. If you can't find anything you like, make your own. Just an idea, use red and white polka dotted bows reminiscent of Minnie Mouse. I much prefer green though.

• Loop-end Wire Pins (See Vocab Tab) 

• Round-nosed Pliers (See Vocab Tab)

• Cutters (See Vocab Tab)

• Basic Hooks (See Vocab Tab)

How To:

Take a loop-end wire pin and thread it through the middle part of your bow. Be careful not to damage the bow in any way while you do this. Next, take your round-nosed pliers and bend the pin into a vaguely triangular shape. Use the cutters to cut off the excess. 

Use the round-nosed pliers to attach the basic hook to the loop of the pin. Use the pliers to bend the wire holding the bow slightly forward to adjust the angle at which the bows hang. Do this as many times as it takes for you to be satisfied.

Rating:

Effort Required: 2/10

They don't take much time or effort to make. The hardest part is finding the bows you like, really. They took me roughly 6 minutes to make.

Durability: 7/10

I admit that I have yet to wear them. I kind of just decided that I needed to post today and so I whipped these up, but as a general rule, the simpler the earring, the more durable they are.

Cool Factor: 5/10

The cool factor depends entirely on your choice of bows. Obviously it would greatly increase if you made them yourself, instead of using store bought ones like I did. But there's just so much potential here! With Christmas coming up, these would make a great (cost effective, yet touchingly homemade) gift and could even add a little festive feel to your outfit. I really like that they dangle and, though bow earrings are pretty popular, they're normally made of metal and are attached to studs.

Let us know what you think! Your input is greatly appreciated, so let us know if you have any comments, challenges, suggestions or feedback of any sort. We want to see your finished product!  If you like what you see then please follow us and if you want to keep up to date on our latest posts, follow My Earring Board on Pinterest. Thanks for taking the time to view our blog!

Peg Earrings

I have a friend who rocked up for an exam once with a clothes peg in her hair because she couldn't find a clip. These are a classier kind of cool.

Brace yourself. This list of materials may come as a surprise:

• Two miniature clothes pegs (I made mine multicoloured by taking them apart and putting the halves of different pegs together)
• Super glue 
• Basic studs (See Vocab Tab)

Here's the method. It's worth reading for the one step that isn't obvious from the picture:

Start by gluing the peg shut. This will decrease the chance of the earring breaking if someone tries to pinch it open.

Now stick the pegs onto the studs.

Good job.

Rating:

Effort Required: 1/10

In the time it took you to read this post you could probably have made a pair. At least I haven't wasted much of your time by making it unnecessarily long. Oh, wait, now I just made it longer by saying that. I'm sorry.

Durability: 8.5/10

Fewer steps usually means stronger earrings and more boring posts.

Cool Factor: 6/10

I'm not entirely happy with these. I had wanted to make them so they look like they're actually pegged onto your ears but I couldn't come up with a good enough way to do it. Suggestions?

Felt Flower Earrings

This is more of an idea for an idea

You will need:

• Felt
• A felt-tip pen (Wait, felt can't write on felt! What kind of stupid name is that?) 
• Scissors
• embroidery thread
• A needle
• Super Glue
• Basic studs (See Vocab Tab)

How it's done:

Real simple: draw a small flower shape on the felt and cut it out. Using the needle and embroidery thread stitch a couple of stitches which cross each other at various angles in the middle of the flower. Make sure to start and end off with a double stitch to keep it secure. Super glue the stud to the back of the flower.

Rating:

Effort Required: 3/10

Quick and simple!

Durability: 9/10

They can withstand wind, water, sleep and even violent hugs.

Cool Factor: 5/10

The cool part about these is that they're not just felt flower earrings. They represent endless possibilities for earrings made of felt. They represent hope and versatility and the dying art of stitching stuff. They represent colour and peace and happiness and all those other reasons hippies protested against war. All you see are the flowers though.

Genie and Lamp Earrings

In my opinion, truly great actors are extremely rare in society today. The death of Robin Williams has just added to that problem. Here on Glue and Random Objects, we tend to put awesome things on our earlobes and I thought that he really deserves a spot on mine. As tribute to him I made Genie and lamp earrings from Aladdin, which I must have watched a bazillion times as a kid and have watched another 4 times since his death. 

You Will Need:

• Clay in blue, white, black, red and yellow. Once again I used Crazy Clay by Bostik, same as I used for the Biscuit Earrings and the Perry the Platypus Earrings. I prefer to work with crazy clay because it's light, air drying, it sticks together really well and I just find it generally easier especially when including small details. The downside is that it's bouncy, so if you sometimes have butter fingers (guilty, I actually dropped the first head that I made and it bounced away so I had to start again) feel free to work with Polymer Clay or whatever you're comfortable with. Just use your discretion by including baking time or increasing drying time, etc before making them into earrings.

• Toothpick (optional, I just use my fingers)

•  Bobby pin

• Jump rings (See Vocab Tab)

•  Basic Hooks (See Vocab Tab)

•  Round-nosed Pliers (See Vocab Tab)

How To:

 

Obviously you're only going to make on of each thing; 1 Genie, 1 lamp. So you only need enough clay for one each. To make  this tutorial easier, I'm going to divide it into 2 parts. One for Genie and one for the lamp. We'll start with the easiest. 

THE LAMP

Begin by mixing yellow with a smidgen of red. When I say a smidgen, I mean a smidgen. You want to get a yellow slightly less lemony than they provide, so a yellow with a slight tinge of orange. Mix in increments of red until you're satisfied with the colour.It helps to google a picture of it. Here's the picture I used

Pinch off a little bit and set it aside for Genie's cuffs and earring. Then divide the remaining clay into 5 pieces; the first piece about half of your overall amount, then the second less than that, the third less than the second, etc.

Take the biggest piece and roll it into a ball. Then taper it at one end so that it looks like a stretched teardrop shape. This is going to be used as the body of the lamp. Shape the tapered end into a slight upward curve, like you can see in the picture.

Next you will be working with your two smallest piece. Roll the smallest into a ball and then taper one end to form a droplet shape. Roll the second smallest into a ball and then flatten the bottom to form a subtle dome. Attach the dome flat side down onto the top of the body as the lid and then attach the small droplet point upwards to the top of it to make the handle.

Roll the second biggest piece into an even sausage, roughly 3mm thick. Curl one end of the sausage to create a round little bubble that you can see at the bottom of the handle. Attach the handle to the body on the round end, bending it as you can see in the picture with the little bubble at the bottom.

Finally roll the third biggest piece into a ball and then  flatten one side to create a more pronounced dome than the lid. Attach the round side to the bottom of the body to form the base of the lamp.

GENIE

Take a deep breath and know from the beginning that this is going to be difficult. In order for him to be recognizable, there are a lot of tiny, fiddly details that are a pain to make and attach. Just be patient and methodical. Try to keep your hands steady. Here we go. 

First use blue and white clay to mix a sky-blue colour. Once again, it helps if you look up a picture. This time, the colour doesn't have to be exact because there are so many other details that give Genie character. My blue was not quite right, but I'm running low on white, so I didn't want to make more clay than I would use.

Use about half the clay to make the torso. Roll it into a ball, then flatten it slightly. Taper one end a little so that the shape is vaguely triangular. On the opposite end, pinch and roll two arms on either side. They also need to be a little tapered on the end and make sure to get the beefiness of those biceps. I guess it's the product of 10 000 years cooped up in that tiny lamp. What else is there to do but work out? So right now, Genie should look a little like he's doing the YMCA. In between his shoulders, pinch and roll a little neck for the head to rest on.

Time for the yellow. Remember that little piece you saved from the lamp? OK, so Pinch off a little piece and set it aside for Genie's earring. Divide the remaining clay and roll them into sausages, then squish them flat. These are going to be the arm cuffs. Very carefully, wrap them around Genie's wrists. Start at the side and go around the back, so if you run out of clay and there's a gap, it won't be noticeable when you fold his arms. Use your toothpick here if you find it makes it easier, but be careful not to mark the clay.

Fold his right (your left) arm across his chest and then fold his left (your right) over that one. It should look like his arms are folded. Then take the remaining blue clay and divide it in two unequal parts. The smaller one will serve as his head, so make sure it's head size.

Take the bigger blue part and roll it into an elongated cone. This will be Genie's tail. Stick the flat end to the bottom of the torso. Roll a sausage of red and flatten it, then wind it around the join of the torso and tail to form his belt. Once again, you can use the toothpick here if you find it helps. Once the belt is attached, bend the tail one way and then the other, to form the twist in Genie's tail.

Take the remaining blue clay, pinch off a little and set it aside for the nose and ears. Then roll the clay into a ball, roll the ball into an oval, then press one side to form a skinny rounded triangle. The skinnier side is the top of the head.

Pinch off a tiny amount of black, roll it into a sausage and bend it into a crescent. Squish the crescent flat to form Genie's mouth. Roll tiny amounts of white into sausages and squash them onto the top and bottom of the mouth to complete the teeth. Then attach the entire mouth to the bottom of the face.

Take a little from the blue you set aside and roll it into a small cone. Attach the flat side of the cone to the face, just above the mouth to form the nose. Bend the tip slightly toward the mouth.

Now for the eyes. Use the plastic beads on the end of the booby pin to hollow out some eye sockets on the face above the nose. Pinch off two little amounts of white and roll them each into slightly oval balls. Take an even smaller amount of black and divide it in half. Roll each half into a ball, squish it flat and then press one onto each white ball to form the pupils of Genie's eyes. Gently press the eyes into the sockets on the face.

Pinch off another small amount of black and divide it in half. Set one half aside. Roll the clay into a sausage and attach it to the face under the mouth to form the beard. Add a tiny little curl of black under Genie's chin to give him his goatee.

Take the other half of the black and divide it in half again. Roll it into sausages and then bend them into crescents. Stick each crescent to the face just above each eye to make the eyebrows. Pinch off another little bit of black and roll it onto a droplet shape. Stick this on the top of the head, round side down to make Genie's ponytail.

Take the remaining blue clay you set aside and divide it in two. Roll each into a droplet shape and then flatten. Attach them on either side of the head to form the cute little pixie like ears. Then take the remaining yellow you set aside and roll it into a sausage. Bend it into an almost circle and attach to Genie's right ear (your left).

Finally attach the head to the neck and your Genie is done. Wait for the clay to dry, mine took a day.

To attach them to the basic hooks, use the round-nosed pliers to open the jump rings. Attach the lamp with a jump ring around it's handle, then connect that jump ring to another jump ring which is then connected to the basic hook. This ensures that you can see a side view of the lamp, rather than the less effective top or bottom.

Use another jump ring to pierce through the base at the back of Genie's neck. Use another two jump rings to connect Genie to the other hook.

Rating:

Effort Required: 9/10

These are among the more challenging earrings I've made. The tiny details on Genie require some patience that I almost didn't have. But there's something fulfilling about making something so detailed. I think overall, excluding drying time, these took me about 40 minutes to make. Which is pretty good considering the first head I made bounced away and is still somewhere on my bedroom floor...

Durability: 3.5/10

I would be lying if I said I was sure about this rating. Truth be told, I have yet to wear them out and Louise didn't even know about them before I posted them. I only made them last night. But with the handle and lid handle of the lamp being so flimsy, I cannot imagine they would be all that durable. This depends on the type of clay you used and how big you made your earrings.

Cool Factor: 8/10

Once again, I'm not entirely sure of this. I have yet to wear them out, so this is my own (biased) opinion. I think they're a pretty good representation of Genie and of course, I love Robin Williams. Any accurate movie-based earrings are going to be cool anyway. Also, these are my personal goodbye to one of my all-time favourite actors. I am also 90% certain that you won't find any other earrings like these. 

In memory of Robin Williams (1951-2014) RIP.

Let us know what you think! Your input is greatly appreciated, so let us know if you have any comments, challenges, suggestions or feedback of any sort. We want to see your finished product!  If you like what you see then please follow us and if you want to keep up to date on our latest posts, follow My Earring Board on Pinterest. Thanks for taking the time to view our blog!

Ear Phone Earrings

Teaching has some strange perks. The joy of finding an abandoned set of broken earphones on the classroom floor has been one of my strangest.

You will Need:

• A set of broken earphones. I guess they don't have to be broken when you start but it's always nice not to waste. If they're already broken you get to make something cool out of something useless. You could even call it up-cycling, if you wanted to get fancy about it but I've always thought that the term sounds kind of like an exercise program that's destined for failure.
• Scissors
• Super Glue 
• Basic studs (See Vocab Tab)

How it's Done:

Step one is to cut off the ear pieces, leaving about a thumb length of cord attached to each. 

Step two is to carefully strip the cord (take off the rubbery covering to expose the wires inside) making sure you don't cut the wires in the process. Remove all the covering you can or the effect is somewhat spoiled. In this pair the wires were different colours on each side. This discovery made me happy because all the time I've spent checking my earphones end up in the right ear wasn't a complete waste. It also makes for prettier earrings.

Step three is to wrap the the wires around the ear piece in a criss-cross pattern and then tie a bow in it. Getting the bow right is quite tricky and takes some patience.

Step four depends on what you're working with. If the speaker part of the earphone is still attached and is relatively flat, just super glue the earring stud straight on. If this is not the case, first remove the speaker part from both earrings and then glue some of the cord you cut off, in a coil inside the ear piece to create a fairly level surface you can glue the stud onto.

The final step is to apply a small amount of super glue to each point on your decorative criss-cross where the wires meet. This is to hold them in place and stop them coming undone or slipping off. Keep the gluing subtle though.

Rating:

Effort Required: 5/10

You could save yourself some trouble and just cut the wire off completely but the criss-crossing has the double function of finishing off the earrings and giving them a way to end without making it look like you've performed some kind of brutal decapitation.

Durability: 6/10

The danger with these is not gluing well enough, especially if you stuffed them.

Cool Factor: 8/10

People who think they're cool walk around with earphones in their ears. People who are cool wear them on their ears. It's that simple.