Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Wooden Studs

A few months ago, Lindsay pinned a really cute DIY project where you buy little wooden split balls and paint them to make earrings. I searched and searched for this link but apparently came up blank, so you'll have to take my word for it. It looked simple enough, and although I wasn't feeling the "half painted and half unpainted" look the DIY showed, I thought it would be fun to try out. Much like my wooden mushrooms, the wooden split ball was nearly impossible to find (maybe it's a Canada thing and it's illegal to carry them here - for reasons unknown?)! Being a persistent crafter I thought I'd get creative and bought a package of wooden button caps. They sort of look like mini little mushrooms on their own, but with the help of our hobby room (which has handy vices in it) I made my own split balls! Hurrah!



This also conveniently left me with lots of wooden disk shapes that I could also turn into earrings! All I had to do now was sand the heck out of them (my poor finger tips didn't enjoy this stage) and then paint up a storm! Yay! Time to industrial strength glue some earring posts on, whip up some packaging, and voila! A new line of wooden earrings:


 I had tons of fun mixing up the muted tones and applied some matte varnish to them for a more finished (and durable) look. Let's take another look at the domed studs:

 
and the flat ones (which sort of look like faux plugs if you ask me):


As usual I went a little craft overboard and made an entire rainbow of different earrings! I just couldn't stop and can you blame me? I love colours:

The final step was to come up with packaging and since I wanted to do something different from my doily cards I use for my cabochon studs (link) I went in a slightly different direction (okay, not really) and used a doily stamp instead! It worked perfectly with the fancy tag punch I bought a while back and with my custom url rubber stamp I got made I was set! Here's a front and back view:


Yay! I am beyond thrilled with how these turned out! I like how they have a sort of vintage feel (although that could be my plethora of soft pastels) but are simple enough to go with anything! They were a bit more work than I had anticipated (silly lack of wooden split balls!), but were well worth it once I finished them! I've got one more earring project up my sleeve that I've been dying to try out and after that it will be full fledged craft restocking mode to get ready for the summer! So what are your thoughts? Do you like the new studs?

6 comments:

  1. Those are adorable! I like the faux plug look too. I wouldn't ever get the real ones, but I like the look.

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  2. Love! The domed ones are asking for some white polkadots (or is that just me? :) - great colour selection!

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  3. I can't believe you hand sawed those. You deserve every penny you make off of them...
    I love the domed ones!

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  4. OOOO I really love them! Linds showed my the pic you texted her but now to see them in all their glory is super exciting!!!! I think I need some of these...

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  5. Wow they look fantastic! So simple! And the packaging too is really simple but works really well! Jen x

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  6. They look amazing! I love the cute doily packaging ^_^ I love the red domed ones; they look like a modern take on the vintage glossy-red clip-ons I have!

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