Postage Stamp Earrings

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.

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!

Pokeball Earrings

These are a sort of tribute to a friend of mine who loves Pokemon and bad puns. You just have to make sure you catch them all.

You will need:

• Two small, hollow plastic balls of some sort. Mine actually came from a magic trick my aunt brought back from Japan so if you can't think of another place to get some, I suggest looking there.
• Red and white acrylic paint (those being two separate colours. I don't mean pink.)*
• Black permanent marker
• Drill with thin bit
• Flat-end wire pins (see Vocab Tab)
• Round-nosed pliers (see Vocab Tab)
• Cutters (see Vocab Tab)
• Basic earring hooks (see Vocab Tab)

*By the way Meredith, I borrowed your paint. It's on my desk if you need it.

How to:

The first step is the painting. If your spheres don't have a line around the middle you should probably draw one on first. Mine did though. So there.

Paint the white half first because then you can touch up with the red. You'll probably need to do a couple of layers depending on the base colour but try to keep it smooth and even. Usually you will be wearing them both, not taking a photo of the best one like I get to do, so keep it tidy.

After you've painted half of it red and half of it white and done enough layers of each colour and waited for it to dry properly, carefully draw a line around middle of the ball at in black permanent marker at the point where the red and white meet. It's best to keep it thin at first because you can thicken it to even it out.

Once you've drawn a line right around the ball, chose the messiest portion of that line to draw on the black circle. (This is the part that goes around the white button in the middle.) It's easiest to colour the whole circle in black and then pain in the white part on top. Again start small and make it bigger to get it even. Also keep in mind that it's important to get line thickness and circle size the same on both earrings. You're just going to have to assume I did that too.

I used the back of the paint brush to stamp the white circle in the middle of the black because I felt like it was more accurate than my trying to paint one.

Use the red and/or white paint to neaten up the black if you need to. You may only move onto the next step once your Pokeball looks perfect and is completely dry.

The next step is to drill a hole through the ball from the middle of the red at the top to the middle of the white at the bottom. I guess that you could drill from white to red if you really wanted to, but the important part is that you get the hole in the middle and keep it straight.

Insert a flat-end wire pin through the hole from the white side to the red. Getting the pin through can take patience. Cut of the protruding section of pin to about 1cm and twist it into a loop.

Finally you may attach the hooks and wear them.

Rating:

Effort Required: 6/10

When I took on this idea I didn't actually realize how long it would take and what a delicate process doing it freehand would be. I could probably have fetched some masking tape and made this twice as easy but then I would have had to get up and look for it. It's up to you whether or not to believe the effort score of someone too lazy to even make her own job easier.

Durability: 8/10

My brain is vaguely throwing out the objection that paint is not supposed to stick to plastic but this paint doesn't seem to know that. 

Cool Factor: 8/10

It's Pokemon. If you disagree with this score you probably never watched it as a kid which means you are either too young to be wielding a permanent marker, too old to be caring about how cool you look, or think Pokemon is evil - in which case you have more pressing issues.

Army Man Earrings

I stumbled upon these two while looking for Lego in a decaying bag of leftovers from my brother's childhood. I enjoy the army-man/waitress combination because it looks like you're making a political statement when all you're really doing is wearing toys.

                         

Materials required for idea implementation:

• Two army men or any kind of small plastic figurine. These two are Micromen. I'm not sure of they're still a thing.
• A drill with a thin bit
• 4 jump-rings (See Vocab Tab)
• Basic Hooks (See Vocab Tab)
• Round-nosed pliers (See Vocab Tab)

Actions required for idea implementation

The man and the lady of this pair were made differently. The waitress lady was fortunately made angrier than the guy with the gun. Her arm made a good loop for me to put the jump-ring through. The designer of the soldier was not so considerate. I had to drill a hole in the corresponding place on his body to put the jump-ring through so that both earrings would hang at more or less the same angle.

You'll have to go through a similar process of examination and logical hole-drilling in order to attach your first set of jump rings. 

The second set of jump-rings is to make sure that the earrings hang facing outwards. For every one you add you get a 90 degree rotation. Play around with the number you use until you get the right length and angle.

Finally attach the basic hooks to the topmost jump-ring.

Rating

Effort Required: 2/10

The standard drill-a-hole-and-put-a-jump-ring-through-it score for this blog. I would increase it since it's usually more than one jump-ring, but sometimes you don't even need to drill a hole so it all evens out.

Durability: 8/10

The beauty of making earrings out of stuff that was originally intended to withstand children.

Cool Factor: 7/10

Again, this will depend on the figurines you use. Mine are pretty small and light-weight so they tend to go wandering off into my hair. The matching but not really matching thing is cool though. I feel like people get more excited when they have to put in the effort of checking both the earrings you're wearing.

    

Beaded Bobby Pin Earrings

I saw a version of these earrings on Pinterest and thought they looked really cool. There was no tutorial, but I gave them a go and made up my own.

You will need:

• Seed beads in varying colours and sizes. The ones that I had were a tad too big, but I used them anyway.

• Round-nosed pliers (See Vocab Tab)

• Cutters (See Vocab Tab)

• Flat-end wire pins  (See Vocab Tab) 

Method

Before I start, here is an expertly drawn diagram of the earring by itself. 

 

First, decide on the bead sequence. For best results, arrange them in order of size. The amount depends on the size of your beads and the desired length. I used 7 beads and mine are about 2cm long. 

When selecting you wire, make sure that it isn't too thick to go through your earring holes. Start threading the beads onto the wire, beginning with the smallest bead. When the beads are all threaded use the round-nosed pliers to bend a right angle in the wire as close to the top bead as possible. 

Then continue to bend the approximate shape of the wire in my illustration. It doesn't have to be exact because you can easily adjust them once you've tried them out.When you have the general shape, cut off the excess wire using the cutters.

To put them on, simply hook them through your ears and then pull them up so that they run parallel to the lobe. You may find that you need to make them tighter, or that the line of beads runs too straight, so just take them out adjust them.

Effort Required: 2/10

Overall, they took me about 5 minutes to make. It's really not a lot of work.

Durability: 9/10

There isn't much you can do to break these bad boys without hurting yourself. They aren't bulletproof, unfortunately, but you can do almost anything to them and they won't budge. Just make sure that they are tight enough and you're good. If they do bend out of shape from something, you can just bend them back again, no biggie. 

Cool Factor: 5/10

These are what I like to call my 'lazy earrings'. If I'm going somewhere and I don't feel like coordinating, I just put these in. It's a relatively obscure type of earring, so they aren't too common just yet. It also depends on your colour choice, but these earrings really open up a world of possibilities. Who knows, you may be seeing more of this earring base in the future. 

Let us know what you think! Your input is greatly appreciated, so if you have any comments, challenges, suggestions or feedback of any sort. 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!

Leather Loop Earrings

My sister is in Johannesburg for two weeks, so I'll be posting until she gets back. These earrings are actually the result of my brother, who bought a really cool bottle of Poncho's Coffee Tequila that comes with a pretty leather thing around it's neck. He wanted me to make him a manly leather bracelet out of it and this is what I did with the off-cuts.

You will need:

• Leather string

• Scissors

•  Basic hooks (See Vocab Tab)

• Loop-end wire pins (See Vocab Tab)

• Round-nosed pliers (See Vocab Tab)

• Cutters (See Vocab Tab)

Method

Cut two equal lengths of leather string, roughly 10cm in length. Bend them in half and tie them in a knot where the two ends meet at the top. Use the pliers and cutters to bend the loop end wire pin around the base of the knot and cut off excess. Attach the loops of the pins to the basic hooks and viola!

Effort Required: 2/10

There is very little to do to make these earrings because they are extremely simple. They took me a minute to make. If you have any suggestions or ideas to make them more complex or more effective please leave a comment.

Durability: 7/10

The upside of them being so simple is that there isn't much that can break. They tend to get hooked on things, but because it's a pretty big loop they normally unhook themselves. 

Cool Factor: 4.5/10

They may be simple, but there is definitely something to be said of their simplicity. They're elegant and pretty, but random enough to deserve a spot on here on Glue and Random Objects. They are not very effective if you have brown hair and they are not incredibly original, but they match with pretty much anything and they are worth making, considering the time and effort involved to achieve the overall effect.

Let us know what you think! Your input is greatly appreciated, so if you have any comments, challenges, suggestions or feedback of any sort. 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.

Front and Back Perry the Platypus Earrings

"Doo bee doo bee doo wah, doo bee doo bee doo wah. He's a semi-aquatic, ear lobe dwelling mammal of action"... So Phineas and Ferb is one of my all time favorite cartoons and Perry the Platypus is my all time favorite cartoon character. We recently reached 1000 page views, so as a thank you, I am posting what could be the coolest earrings I've ever made. 

You will need:

• Clay in blue, yellow, red, white and black. I used Crazy Clay by Bostik, the same clay as the Biscuit Earrings. The soft, spongy nature of this clay is particularly important for this project because you need to be able to cut it when it's dry. If you don't like mixing colours, get clay in black, white, teal and orange. However these particular colours are quite specific, so I would advise mixing the colours yourself for accuracy.

• A place mat or clean working surface.

• Superglue

• Scissors

• Basic studs (See Vocab Tab)

 Method

 

To mix the super specific teal colour of Perry, use blue, yellow and white. First mix the blue and yellow in a ratio roughly 2 is to 1, maybe less than 1, to form a dark ugly green. Add white until you are satisfied. It helps to look up a picture of him. But do not be fooled, Perry is teal and not blue. Use a picture of him from an actual episode for best results. You then need to mix a small amount of pale orange by mixing yellow, white and red in an approximate ratio of 3:2:1. Remember, you are mixing enough for 2 Perries. One for each ear. Divide both colours in half and lay one half aside for the second earring. 

To form the body, make a soft rectangular prism about 2.5 cm x 1.5 cm, 2 cm high. Leave a tiny piece of teal clay for the comb later on. If you prefer smaller earrings, make adjustments, but remember that the smaller you make them, the more difficult and less effective they are. 

Pinch out four legs on the corners of the body. I do not recommend attaching here because it messes with the shape of the body and just adds more problems later on if it's not done properly. Make sure that the back legs are shorter than the front legs to allow space for the back feet. Take the piece of teal clay that you saved and roll it into a small sausage. Pinch a little spike in the middle and then fold all three points upwards to form Perry's cool spiky 'do. Attach the hair on the top of the body at the front end, the one with longer legs. 

Next take the orange clay you mixed and pinch some off. Use this to create a soft, flatish tapered rectangle for the tail. Use the scissors or a knife to etch shallow criss-cross cuts on it to form the little pattern on Perry's tail. Stick it on the back end of the body, the one with the shorter legs, and then bend it so it looks like it's trailing on the floor.

Take the left over orange and pinch off two equal sized pieces for the feet. There must still be some orange left over for the bill. To make the feet, roll the pieces into ovals, then squish them gently to flatten them. Attach the feet onto the shorter legs bu the tail. Take the remaining orange clay and make the bill look like the one in the picture. I honestly cannot explain how I did it, partly because I don't remember. I think I started with a thick sausage and flattened one end. Anyway, when that's done attach it to the front end of the body, the one with the hair and without the tail. Make sure it's not too low down and remember that the eyes will go on either side of the nose bridge. 

To make the eyes, simply roll two equal oval balls in white. Take a small amount of black and split it into two tiny black balls. Flatten the black and stick each onto their respective white eyeball. Then stick the eyes close together on either side of the bill bridge on the front end.

Go back and make a second Perry, then keep them somewhere out of reach of children and dream crushers while you wait for them to dry.

I waited about 2 days for my clay to dry completely. It's important that you wait for them to dry fully before you go further, because otherwise the shape will change and all your work will be for nothing. When they're dry, cut the bodies in half, just behind the front legs. Make a small slit in the back end to implant the butterfly of the basic studs. Superglue the butterfly in place so that it doesn't stick out. The superglue the front ends of the basic studs on to the front end of Perry. Be generous with the superglue as this clay is quite absorbent. Wait for the glue to dry completely before putting them on. 

Rating: 

Effort Required: 7/10

They can be quite fidgety to make, but overall they just take up a lot of time, not so much effort. And they're totally worth it!

Durability: 6/10

They're quite durable compared to the Biscuit Earrings, but just remember that there are many parts that they consist of and they can get easily snagged. Keep them away from water, exuberant hugs and curious fingers.

Cool Factor: 10/10

These are the coolest earrings I've made yet by far. The responses to these have been awesome, I even got one, 'oh, there you are Perry'. I think I did Perry the Platypus proud. These are seriously worth everything it took to make them. Plus the front and back thing really adds to the overall effect. 

Thank you so much for reading our posts so far. If you like what you see please follow us and if you make any of our earrings please let us know what you think. Any comments, challenges, suggestions or feedback of any sort would be greatly appreciated. Also, if you want to keep up to date, follow My Earring Board on Pinterest.

Jelly Bean Earrings

I apologize for the fact that these look like they're going through some terrible process of decay. I unthinkingly applied a layer of water-based impatience under the varnish. I would have made a new pair but by the time I'd finished these the extra jelly beans were finished too. Rest assured these instructions are for shiny, delicious-looking beans.

There's quite a bit of creativity you can bring into the design of these. You can vary the colour and number of beans and how they are attached. These instructions are for the shiny, uncorrupted version of this design. I won't give you others, you have a brain.  

You Will Need

• Basic Hooks (See Vocab Tab)
• 8 Jump rings (See Vocab Tab)
• 8 flat-end wire pins (See Vocab Tab)
• Round-nosed pliers (See Vocab Tab)
• Cutters (See Vocab Tab)
• 8 Jelly Beans
• Super glue
• Oil Based spray lacquer 

Here's How

The first step is impaling each of the jelly beans. It's a tricky process. A brief description of the anatomy for jelly beans is that their relatively hard outer shell is just protecting stickiness. Any damage to this shell therefore, compromises the structural integrity of the jelly bean. It's important to be careful when impaling them, to keep the durability and visual appeal of these babies at a max. Hold them gently as you push the pin through to avoid cracks. This process will displace some of their stickiness onto the pin, your hands and everywhere but just stay calm and know that the jelly bean is suffering more than you are.

Once you've pushed the pin right through trim it, leaving roughly 1 cm protruding from the bean to give you room to make a loop. Then make a loop using the round-nosed pliers. This is a little more difficult than usual. You can't use the bean as a point to bend it from because too much pressure will crack the bean. Hold it gently and work slowly.

Now you can wipe all the jelly-bean innards off the pins, just don't use anything moist to do so.

Put a blob a super glue at the places where the pin comes out of the bean. This is to seal it and keep the pin in place. They used to use super glue to stick people's skin back together during the war when there was no time for stitches. Interesting facts are always relevant.

Once the glue is dry treat each bean to to couple of coats of spray lacquer.

Once that's dry attach a jump ring to each bean and join them together in a chain. Join the chain to the basic hooks.

Rating

Effort Required: 6/10

It's a deceptively delicate process if you want to get it right, especially the first time you do it. In this score I'm also including the effort of waiting for stuff to dry.

Durability: 5.5/10

Mine have lasted despite their pre-varnish exposure to water. This is indicative of a admirable will to survive on their part. Once varnished they should withstand moisture within reasonable limits. They're nervous sweets though; they tend to crack under pressure.

Cool Factor:  8/10

One jelly bean on its own makes a kind of sucky earring. Together though, these look like a miniature bunch of colouful balloons, which makes me happy.