Bling! Bling!

I had fun today with some new earrings….and old earrings!  Before I go any further, I want to show you my favorite earrings:

They’re pink, light, dangly but dainty, and they are the perfect combination of dressy and casual.

Here’s how they look ON me:

OK, ignore the dessert.  Ohhhh….what I’d give for a slice of that again! Mmmmm….

Back to the earrings…..I love them!

I wanted something similar but in a blue/turquoise color (and it might be nice to have a bronzy neutral color, too).  I’ve been looking for a while and haven’t seen anything that strikes my fancy, until Monday when I perused the Fred Meyer’s clearance jewelry section.  I found a similar pair in turquoise blues/greens, and a not-so-similar pair in a more neutral color.

I wore the turquoise pair to dinner and about halfway through the meal my ears were aching!  The earrings were waaaaay too heavy.

Here’s the turquoise earring next to the pink earring for size comparison:

The heavy stone on the bottom, and other heavy beads…ugh.  Well, I do have jewerly making tools and beading know-how, so why not remove those heavy beads and redesign the earrings to make them lighter and more dainty!

So that’s what I did!

Here’s the original on the left, and the repurposed one on the right:

Now they look a lot more like my favorite pink earrings:

Ta da!

And the more neutral pair (OK, so I guess they are a denim-blue color, amber and silver).

The one on the left is the lighter version I created, the one on the right is the original heavier one:

And this is the pile of beads that I removed from the two pairs:

Geesh- that’s enough to make probably 2 more pairs of earrings! Hey, that gives me an idea!

I have an old pair of earrings that are no longer my style:

So I took them apart!  I found an old necklace chain that I wasn’t ever going to wear again and cut it into 7-link sections then added the beads.  Here’s my new creation:

So now that’s three pairs of earrings, plus extra beads leftover!

The earrings were originally $14.99 per pair, marked down to $11.97 per pair and then clearanced at 40% off…..and at home they were converted to three pairs of earrings for a total of $14.36 (plus dismantling an old necklace and an old pair of earrings)!

Here they all are side by side, with my favorite pink ones.

I’m so excited!