Today’s post comes to you via special request from Twitterer thatlaurachick. Woot!
I love earrings the way some women (with more closet space) love shoes. The way some obscenely rich people love Prada bags and BMWs. The way – just to bring it down to earth a little – some people love fantasy novels and polyhedral dice; I collect them, and I have way too many.
But as with shoes, and as with fantasy novels, there are a lot of shitty, poorly made and just plain ugly earrings out there. As well as many that are over-the-top and outrageously priced. Unlike shoes and readable fantasy novels, however, it’s easy to make your own earrings.
Here’s one specific method for making incredibly lightweight, inexpensive earrings out of paper. Use whatever paper you have around the house – ticket stubs, greeting cards, invitations, flyers, little tiny leftover bits of scrapbooking paper too small for anything else but too pretty to throw away, etc. And if you don’t wear earrings, try putting these little paper circle pendants on a necklace or bracelet instead.
What you’ll need:
- pretty paper (scrapbooking paper, old book pages, atlas pages, sheet music, greeting cards, etc. It should be heavier weight than just printer paper, though. Things like wrapping paper will only work if you glue it to a sturdier base of cardstock or similar first.)
- a circle cutter or circle punch (or you can use other shapes)
- an old or cheap paintbrush
- varnish / sealant (easily obtained from any hardware store – get the water-based kind for easier cleanup)
- medium or large sewing needle
- earring hooks
- jump rings
- needlenosed pliers
- rounded needlenosed pliers
Putting it all together:
1) Start with your paper and your varnish. Put a light coat of varnish on one side of your paper and let it dry. The paper may curl up a bit – don’t worry about this. Once it’s dry, put a coat of varnish on the other side of the paper and let that dry. You can do two coats of varnish on each side, or just one – it’s up to you.
When everything is dry and you’re done with all your varnishing, flatten the paper by curling it gently in the opposite direction or leaving it under a heavy book for a while.
2) Take your circle cutter or circle punch and cut eight circles from your paper, whatever size you like. (Well, you probably don’t want to make them too big.)
3) Determine which side of your paper is Side A (the pretty, want-it-to-be-seen side), and which is Side B. Using a needle, place two of your circles together, B sides touching, and poke a whole through them near the edge. Not too close or they may tear, but not too far in. Do this with all of your circles, in sets of two.
If you have any trouble getting the needle to go through, start with a smaller needle and then use the larger one. Like people do with gaugeing their ears – same principle. Minus the pain, of course, unless you also drive the needle through your finger, which is really not recommended.
This is the basic premise of the whole thing. From here on, I’ll explain how to make exactly the set of earrings in the first photo in this post. As you can see at the end of the post, though, there are plenty of other variations you can come up with using this basic varnished-paper-circle-with-hole-punched-in-it setup.
4) On four of your circles (that’s two sets of two) poke another hole on the opposite side from the first one. These are your top circles.
5) Open up a jump ring. Take your top circles and put the jump ring through one set of holes. Use your pliers to close up the jump ring, nice and tight so the paper can’t come off. Now put a jump ring through the second set of holes. Don’t close it yet.
Next, take your other circles, the ones with only one hole punched in them, and put them onto that same jump ring, then close the jump ring.
6) Attach more jump rings for extra dangliness if you wish, then affix your earring hooks. All done!
As I mentioned above, there are lots and lots of other designs that can be made with this basic method. Get creative and see what you can come up with!
Play around with different metals (colours) for your jewelry findings, and with different sizes and shapes of jump rings. You can get jump rings that are triangular or square, and probably some other funky shapes if you look around a bit. For the red and white patterned earrings shown at the top of this post, glue a couple pieces of thick paper together, varnish them, and poke some holes in the bottom to hang glass beads on jump rings from. Play around and see what you come up with!
Mrs Whiffin
/ September 11, 2010I love all your tutorials! Amazing stuff
Jorden aka MrsWhiffin on SB
Tanja
/ September 11, 2010I love these earrings and the fact that you can make them yourself! Wow! I thought it was extra complicated, lol. I don’t wear earrings though but I could make them as a gift!
Have a great weekend!
Tanja aka tanchyka from swap-bot
thatlaurachick
/ September 11, 2010Oooo! These are easy! Now I just need to find all my opera ticket stubs from last year…. :D Thanks Tally!
Trina
/ September 11, 2010I LOVE your blog! You combined 2 of my favorite things – paper & earrings! I can’t wait to go through my scrap paper drawer and start making some of these!
(cowinaroundagan from swapbot)
Hayley
/ September 12, 2010You are way too crafty for me woman. I can’t keep up! LOL. But I love it!!!
HayleyK from SwapBot
Allison
/ September 12, 2010These are cute earings and a great tutorial too!!! I think I might have to give these a try.
Craftymom85- swapbot partner for Comment on my blog
Mimi Torchia Boothby Watercolors
/ September 13, 2010Great tutorial, those ARE cute earrings.
I am your friend mimitabby from swapbot
Jamila
/ September 13, 2010Those earrings were really cute (all of them). And I love the name of your blog. I find myself saying that a lot!!!!!
Im Jajones_3d on swapbot
admin
/ September 13, 2010Thanks everyone, glad you like them! There seems to be a general idea out there that jewelry making has to be a)really expensive and b)pretty difficult. But I’m discovering that neither of these has to be true… :)
@thatlaurachick – opera ticket stubs sounds like a GREAT idea for these. Let me know how they turn out!
lageodesign
/ September 13, 2010Love those earrings… Was just thinking of some earring projects because it’s my daughters birthday today and she asked me to create her some earrings…
Samantha Baros
/ September 13, 2010These are soo cute! I’m going to have to try making them. It would be a great way to use up the papers in my scrap pile!
Samantha (Flutterflies22-SwapBot)
Riechan
/ September 13, 2010ooh cute ones! I love earrings too ^^
I’m sure to try this! Thanks
~Riechan from Swap-bot~
julie wasson
/ September 14, 2010love your blog. i always go places and say i can make that! I need a way to change my dads work shirts into shirts for me. Any ideas?
Sol
/ September 14, 2010Hi there! I’m solsuny from Swap.bot. I love your blog!!! Full of great ideas, I’ll visit it often. And I’ll try to make those earrings!!!
Nice tutorials
Heather
/ September 14, 2010So pretty! Makes me almost wish my ears were pierced so I could make and wear some! :) This is homekeepingheather from Swap-bot.
Deidre
/ September 15, 2010Love your blog. I think I can make some of these things, and will love trying!
Parnter on swap-bot “Comments on your Blog” -Deidreart
april
/ September 16, 2010great tutorials…I’m sure they take a lot of time to put together
april (rainbowafterrain81 comments on your blog swap)
Sandy
/ August 27, 2011I do this kind of stuff with earrings all the time, but I use empty gift cards because they are thicker and I can play around with the patterns
fatima
/ August 20, 2013ittttsssssssss soooooo nizeeeeeeeee
http://foqupint.wordpress.com
/ April 24, 2014I’m truly enjoying the design and layout of your site.
It’s a very easy on the eyes which makes it much more
enjoyable for me to come here and visit more often.
Did you hire out a designer to create your theme? Superb work!
Read Full Article
/ June 17, 2014I have been surfing on-line more than three hours lately,
yet I by no means discovered any attention-grabbing article like yours.
It is pretty price enough for me. Personally, if all site owners and bloggers made just right content material as you probably did, the
web shall be a lot more useful than ever before.
emergency plumber jacksonville fl
/ July 16, 2014Nice post. I used to be checking continuously this weblog and I am impressed!
Extremely useful info specially the last section :) I maintain such info a lot.
I was looking for this particular info for a long time.
Thank you and best of luck.
Feel free to visit my weblog … emergency plumber jacksonville fl
lam bang dai hoc
/ September 23, 2014Superb blog! Do you have any hints for aspiring writers?
I’m planning to start my own blog soon but I’m a little lost
on everything. Would you propose starting
with a free platform like WordPress or go for a paid option? There are so many options out there that I’m totally confused ..
Any ideas? Thank you!
my weblog – lam bang dai hoc
Call Colorado Plumber
/ April 27, 2017Interesting post! After a thorough read to your post I want to say that you have shared best quality stuff in the content of the post.
Fsfloada
/ November 28, 2020case study 5 problems to write an essay about essay notes
Noah123aaa
/ October 18, 2022Good post, very well written. If you need help writing an equally good post, article, or research paper, we will help you paperwritingservices.reviews the result will surprise you!
Robbie Schleker
/ August 27, 2023I’m impressed by how some online stores offer virtual assistance to show you through your shopping trip. Best sellers womens clothing 2023
marrontic
/ October 3, 2023Basketball Stars is a great game and worth experiencing. I recommend everyone to try it if you love basketball.
David
/ February 10, 2024A perfect collection of tips and strategies! greatly beneficial blog! Thank very much for this great piece.