This pin was originally tested on CraftFail.
OMG, are these not the cutest thing you have ever seen?
Image from TiffyQuake
Despite my complete lack of crafting ability, I decided to try it out. I mean, there’s even a video tutorial. How hard could it be, right? (Famous last words…)
For this one, you need some tools– namely, pliers. I stole these out of the garage because they were in the tool chest closest to the door and I’m scared to walk too far in there. Things tend to go in the garage and never come out.
I don’t think they’re exactly the right thing, but hey, you use what you’ve got.
I decided to start with the smaller ear cuff because it looked easier and I got to cut a paperclip in half, and that was sort of a power trip.
Bending in the pin holes on the sides wasn’t too hard, even though smaller pliers probably would have been better. (I needed a smaller tool. That’s what she said… Wait…)
The hardest part was bending it into a heart, but even that was mostly ok-ish…
And despite having to re-bend things a few times, I ended up with something that was a close approximation of what it should have been.
Emboldened, I decided to get started on the larger (and more difficult) cuff.
Halfway through, it broke.
Oops. At this point, my awesome little brain decided that the solution was, of course, to use a bigger paperclip. Then it wouldn’t break. I am a freaking genius.
Turns out that the big paperclips are much harder to bend, and the gold ones tend to lose their gold stuff when you twist them a lot.
By the time I got to the last steps, things were not going well.
You can’t quite tell from the picture, but the whole thing is pretty much a hot mess. The pliers left teeth marks all over it and the gold started flaking off where it’s bent, which is pretty much everywhere. Not cute, and not something I really want near my earhole, but I needed a picture, so I arranged them as best I could and photographed it.
No Pintesters were injured in the making of this photograph, but I did drop the smaller cuff in my ear and had a momentary fear of it getting stuck in there. But then I saw the photo and the fear was replaced by loathing.
10 Comments
Those are super cute! Maybe use your gold leaf pen to replace the gold that rubbed off from the pliers? Love this pin!
Aw the little heart looks good! The other one cracked my me up!!! http://www.facebook.com/Bietaonetsy
You did great, considering this was not your forte. Note: use smooth paper clips only. The ridged ones tend to break. I’ve been making earrings from paper clips since I was a teen, and that’s a long time. It’s also how long I’ve known I was allergic to nickel. 🙁 If you want a bit of color, paint the parts that will show on the ear (not go in the holes) with nail polish.
These earrings are meant to be made with roundnose pliers: the kind that are circular and don’t have the flat gripping bits. If you had those, it would have worked. I make jewelry and have made these cuffs in the past.
I also dabble in jewelry making (I have even taken a class with a real jeweler and played with blowtorches) and I believe that this was probably made with jewelry wire and not a paperclip as well. Starter tool sets with the various pliers are not that expensive at Michael’s and are a lot of fun to play around with. The hobby sets are smaller than the one’s you use for household stuff. The real jewelers have shit tons of tools but there are a lot of things you can do with the plier kits My daughter and I got started by taking a free class at Michael’s to learn how to make a necklace and once you learn how to do a few things with pliers you can do a whole lot of beading. It’s a fun hobby, very relaxing – though I tried to teach my sister who has some major astigmatism going on and if your eyes aren’t good, it’s really not as fun.
The heart looks cute. At least the big one is not still in a total paper clip shape. Although, if you hung a paper clip from your paper clip they might just be fancy enough to wear out on date night. Oh, and btw, “she” would NEVER say that. 😉
LOL! You need sterling wire – it’s much softer. And smooth pliers, and, oh never mind. 😉 If you really want one I could whip ‘it up for ya…I’ve been wanting to try making these, since I’m too chicken to actually pierce the top of my ear.
I like the baby one. The big one almost looks like you meant to do it that way.
The small one is really pretty! you have me thinking i’d like it, but then I remember I’m allergic to most metals near my ears (Idk, I itch, but I can wear rings and stuff just fine. Go figure) and I don’t like jewelry anyway (those rings I mentioned were when I was a kid). But it’s SO PRETTY that it makes me forget I hate jewelry.
They are actually really pretty-especially the small one.