Earring-A-Day 31: Pencils

So of course my last earrings of the month would be posted late, of course. Wednesday is/was office supply day, and it also became an upcycle day. Remember my oh-so-awesome Flying Spaghetti Monster Earrings? Those eraser meatballs came from pencils. Which I saved. As I tend to do with things.

I took those pencils, cut them up, and came up with this:

They're kind of shabby-looking, right? I used a box cutter. It was pretty tedious. I definitely need to buy a coping saw. But they're not bad. I was kind of inspired by this craftzine post, though when I drilled all my lead broke. Ah well. Here's another shot:

I wish I'd had more sections of pencil with writing, as I think it gives a nice touch.

Earring-A-Day 24: CD Cases

You know how I mentioned two fails in last week's office supply theme post? Well I managed to salvage one of them: CD Cases!

Are CD cases office supples? I think so- especially since I work in operations for a TV network and we use these for DVDs. In my previous position I always ended up recycling a number of these, so they'd even work for a Friday upcycle post, too.

Basically I put these in a reusable shopping bag and broke them. Originally when I took them out I thought the pieces looked too big/obviously CD cases and deemed it a failure. Last night I revisited the idea and broke off smaller pieces by hand. Then it was just a matter of drilling holes in each and looping some wires through to attach the hooks.

Earring-A-Day 17: Paper Stars

Today's earrings came out of a whole ton of fail. I had two different ideas before this- one featured plastic that was incredibly uncooperative, the other was too simple. And soon as I'd basically finished that second one a new strategy came to mind that I liked a ton better but was impossible given what I'd already done. Sorry about the vagueness, if I can work out the issues they will be featured the next two Wednesdays of the month.

Yes, it's office supply day! Today's are simple but cute:

 
Yes, those are the paper stars you probably made in elementary school. Thing is- I didn't learn until last week. Truly I had a deprived childhood.

After creating the stars with paper strips I used a sharp embroidery needle to create holes for my headpins to go through. Then it was just a matter of creating loops at the top and attaching earring hooks.

This is my first experience with paper earrings, and I'm happy the weather today is supposed to be nice. For added protection I may coat these in some outdoor mod podge I happen to have, we'll see.

Earring-A-Day 10: Flying Spaghetti Monster Earrings

These earrings are the reason I had a "make something from office supplies" day. I was a little nervous these wouldn't turn out well, but they're my favorite so far. Seriously. I may have to stop now, because there's no way I'm going to top Flying Spaghetti Monsters:

Obviously the spaghetti is rubber bands. The meatballs are erasers, and the support structures are paper clips. The eyes are just the wire shaped into loops, then covered in a thick layer of white out. Once that dried I used a sharpie to color in the pupils.

Another pic:

I know the FSM usually has more...tendrils(?), but I was worried the rubber bands would come undone. Still. Look at them: adorable!

Earring-A-Day 3: "Earrings"

Wednesday is office supply day, and so I spent my lunch break yesterday working on today's pair. I wanted them to be simple but not obvious, so I decided to use paper clips but transform them.
 

Quote earrings! Or, "Earrings."

I actually went through a few different positionings of the quotes themselves, but had issues with the placement of the loop, getting them balanced and looking at all decent. If this failed I would've worn plain ol' paper clips on hooks but I was finally successful.

They're not perfect, but everything I say today will be tinged with sarcasm. Look, I can even make fun of Day 1's earrings:

Sour cherry flavored soda? More like "sour" "cherry" flavored "soda." Burn!