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Friday, December 14, 2012

DIY Christmas: Shell Earrings

Let me start off by saying, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM!!  luv you!

Wow.  These were hard for me.  Don't get me wrong - the making part was easy...it was the designing process that was hard.

I'm not super creative.  I'm pretty good at copying other people's ideas, and I'll even put my own twist on them sometimes.  But coming up with my own ideas?  That's hard. 

My task?  Use shells my mom collected on her yearly trip to Aruba to make a pair of earrings.  You'd think this would be pretty easy.  I mean, have you even looked for shell earrings on etsy?  They are all over the place. 

First, I had to come up with a way to attach a jump ring to the shell.  I drilled holes in couple shells, and it worked fine for the bigger ones.  But the smaller ones were just too thin and fell apart.  


So out came the hot glue gun.  I was a bit worried the hot glue would discolor the shell, but so far so good.  And everything seems to be holding pretty well.


These earrings took about 2.5 hours to "design" and about 30 minutes to make.  Then 20 minutes to put everything away.  Ugh.  My least favorite part.  But they are done and I'm pretty happy with them.


I'm not usually a fan of mixing metals.  I'm strictly a silver girl, and occasionally will do antique copper.  But this time around, the shiny copper on shiny silver won out and I think I'm in love!  I hope my mom is too!






p.s.  these might be the worst pics I've ever taken of my earrings.  I trashed my light box when we moved, and I've yet to make a new one!  These pictures are using my camera flash. Gasp!

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