You know how bored people used to collect books full stamps? Well, my aunt was one of those people. And in case you didn't know, postage stamps are sometimes extremely cool. So I sought a way to combine the awesomeness of earrings with that of stamps and this is the tutorial I came up with to share with you lovely people. Hope you appreciate this... post. Haha, get it? Because they're stamps :)
You will need:
- Two postage stamps of roughly the same size. If you have a pair of identical stamps, great. If not, do what I did and just try to make sure that the stamps you choose are similar or different enough to be cool. Be sure to choose the coolest stamps you can find, but also be mindful of size. Mine are the smaller end of the scale so that they're less irritating. There were some super cool Alice in Wonderland, Benjamin Rabbit and Harry Potter special editions that were just too ridiculously big to use without cutting.
- Cardboard. It needs to be pretty thick, like, thicker than a cereal box, but thinner than corrugated cardboard. I think I used the bottom of a Lindt chocolate box. By all means, use these earrings as an excuse to buy yourself a box of chocolates.
- A needle
- A hammer or something heavy to use as such.
- Glue
- Scissors
- Clear packaging tape or that clear sticky plastic they use for covering books
- Basic Hooks (See Vocab Tab)
- Round-nosed pliers (See Vocab Tab)
How To:
Glue the stamps to the cardboard and then carefully cut around the reinforced stamps when the glue is dry. If you want to test your patience to the max, try and cut in between the little stamp frills. Alas, I, lacking the patience of a saint, opted for the simpler option of cutting a straight line along the frills. I get away with it because my under cardboard is white.
Then take the little cardboard stamps and cover them, front and back, with whatever form of clear sticky plastic you are using. Make sure you cover the whole thing to seal it properly against moisture.Try and keep any overlapping edges neat and to a minimum.
Lay them flat and use the needle and hammer to pierce holes in the top corner of each stamp. They hang in reflection to the other, so the one going in the left gets a hole in the top left corner, and the one going in the right gets a hole in the top right corner. Make sure you leave enough space for the hole to be secure, but not so much that it messes with the aesthetics of the stamp.
Use the round-nosed pliers to bend open the loops at the bottom of the basic hooks and attach them by the holes in the stamps. Then close the loops.
Rating:
Effort required: 3.5/10
On the whole, these don't take a lot of time or effort to make. The part that gets a little finicky is the covering with plastic because sticky does not have much discretion.
Durability: 6/10
When you consider they're made of paper and cardboard, that's pretty good. They're not particularly elaborate, hence higher durability. This score does however, depend on the thickness of your cardboard, the placement of your holes and your taping prowess.
Cool Factor: 7/10
What I like about these is the history involved. Stamps are cool. And they're even cooler because the art of stamp collecting has been somewhat lost on our generation. They're vintage and unique, if you choose the right stamps. The idea has been done before, but not in this way (I googled it) so if you wear them out, you aren't likely to meet someone wearing the same thing (unless they too, are part of our slowly increasing fan-base). They are not always immediately identifiable, but they're still pretty.
