DIY Les Bonbons Earrings

December 31, 2016

I love homemade gifts and for Christmas 2015 I made candles and pins. This year I took on the overly ambitious project of making earrings, similar to Les Bonbons by Rebecca De Ravenel that are available for purchase here: https://rebeccaderavenel.com/. It was harder than it looked, so unfortunately I did not finish in time for Christmas, but alas - I am now complete and here are the results!

For this project the supply list is incredible, because it is cheap and basic. You will need:
1) Styrofoam balls (4 / pair): I used 1" smoothfoam balls found here, http://www.smoothfoam.com/product/balls/10010.html
2) Styrofoam half balls (2 / pair): I used 1" half smoothfoam balls found here, http://www.smoothfoam.com/product/10612.html
3) Gold acrylic paint, or color to match silk thread
4) Gold silk thread, or color to match paint
5) Clip-on earring flat back findings: I used something like these, http://www.firemountaingems.com/itemdetails/h20b4401fn
6) Gold wire, jump rings or chain: can also find at Fire Mountain Gems
7) Needle-nosed pliers, wire cutter (for jewelry), Glue, Toothpicks.... scissors, and, that's it!

The first step is to drive a hole through your smoothfoam balls with a toothpick and paint them gold. You can use the toothpick to hold the ball in place as you paint.

Painting the smoothfoam ball gold with acrylic paint.

I ended up painting a few different sizes to experiment. The larger balls, 1" diam., were my fave.

Smearing on glue with a free toothpick and tucking the tail of the silk cord in place - glue and wrap.

Keep gluing, keep wrapping and watch out for dirty fingers!

Once you reach the end, tuck in the string with some glue and let dry.

If you are still with me, you are golden. The hard part is done!

Repeat steps above with your half smoothballs.

Time to assemble. Using a headpin or gold wire (as pictured), use a needle nosed plier to loop the end. This is to keep the bottom bead in place.

Using the needle-nosed pliers, make a loop.

Attach a short length of chain. I ended up only using one single loop.

Put it all together! Yes, it is possible. :)

Apply glue to your half smoothball and cover with felt circle backing.

Glue on the clip-on with tacky glue and assemble. These earrings weigh almost nothing!

So I appreciate that this project is probably too hard for most to want to take on. If you love these earrings, but don't love the crafting component - you can always splurge for the original that is available for sale here: https://rebeccaderavenel.com/

If anyone decides to give it a go - please post your comments below! Would love to hear how it worked out!

Holiday Decor Cont...

November 20, 2016

I have been chipping away at our holiday decorating moving towards Thanksgiving - I am early! This weekend the magnolia garland, ornaments and wreath arrived. They look beautiful! I ordered everything shown here from One Kings Lane (www.onekingslane.com) and purchased their shipping pass for $19.95 to get free shipping through 12/31.

First project - dip-dyed silver magnolia garland

I loved the idea of creating a dip-dyed silver garland to lay across the cabinet that my dad made for me. I store china in this cabinet and since we do not have a proper mantle it was a good place for some holiday dressing!

First, I draped the garland and marked off the tail for spray paint. This garland is 10' long and was $79 from One Kings Lane.

I used silver spray-paint, but you could use any color in the metallic family.

With the paper barrier in place, bring the garland to a well-ventilated area and give it a few good coats of metallic spray-paint!

I love how this garland turned out, but I also love how everything in these last pictures were made by me or my family! My mom made the sweater I am wearing, my dad made the cabinet, James and I made the woven leather chair (previous post) and I painted the monkey (previous post). Everyone including James has gotten into the crafting spirit! :)

Broken Dishes

October 9, 2016

I love the Lynn Chase Jungle Jubilee hand painted plates. I ordered a set of four off of Ebay for $30. Unfortunately, two arrived broken in half, so I am left with two for this post. :/ (USPS claim is in the works!). Today I am going to show you how to fix a plate with a chip. Note: this method should only be used to fix chips along the edge of a plate and not where food is served.

Love these plates. If you look closely, you can see some chips along the edges.

To fix the chips, you need: 1) 2-Part Epoxy: I used Devcon from Amazon, 2) Oil pastels, 3) Toothpicks

To fix the chips, color the oil pastel directly into the chip, mix the 2-part epoxy with a toothpick (equal parts) and spread the epoxy over your pastel work. I've seen an alternative method where the oil pastel is mixed directly into the epoxy and then applied. Coloring directly onto the chip worked best for me.

Complete! Three chips basically disappeared..

My color matching was not perfect because I was short on pastels.