It's been quite a while since I last posted – time that includes, in roughly chronological order, cleaning out my place, packing, a move, unpacking, bewilderment over the stuff I chose to keep, and a dawning apprehension that maybe I should have kept the slow-cooker.
My productivity, in terms of crafts, has suffered from the inevitable chaos of the move, but I'm slowly getting the new place in order, and getting back into the swing of Making Things.
There is, however, one particular thing I got into that I've been enjoying: I've started to dabble in jewelry-making.
It all started on Etsy.
I wanted a pair of earrings with tiny blue-and-white teacups dangling from the hooks. I did an Etsy search, and found just what I was looking for – from multiple sellers. That is, multiple sellers were selling exactly the same teacup earrings as "homemade."
Now, I'm no stranger to the concept of drop shipping. But these earrings actually did seem handmade on some level at least; they all had different photos, the sellers sold a lot of different earrings/jewelry pieces, and they got good reviews. So, the uniformity of the charms implied, not that sellers were all buying earrings from the same third-party source, but that sellers were all sourcing components from the same third-party source.
With that in mind, I did a search for the teacups themselves.
Here's what I found.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/930058896/chinoiserie-teacup-charm-cute-little
These are ridiculously inexpensive. I don't have any problem with people making money off their crafts, of course, but one of the reasons I'd never tried making my own earrings was that I assumed people were making these tiny charms themselves. I didn't realize that I could buy the component pieces for four pairs of $15-20 earrings for less than $5.
More than that, I could control what kind of metals I used. My family tends to have sensitive skin; I don't usually have too many problems with earrings, but my sisters have real issues with some of the mystery metals out there. Besides that, there's the issue of quality; a lot of cheaper earrings tarnish/bend out of shape/ break far too quickly for my taste, which is why I hardly ever buy costume jewelry.
So I did what any woman stubbornly determined to DIY her way through life would do: I went to the local Michael's and spent $14 and change. For that, I got four pairs of ear wires purporting to be 14k gold-plated, a bunch of jump rings of the same provenance, and a starter set of pliers. Then I ordered some beads and charms from Etsy, and did some searching online for tutorials.
I told the cashier at Michael's that I was breaking free of Big Earring. I don't think she thought it was as funny as I do.
By that evening, I had already made two practice pairs of earrings.
WHY did nobody ever tell me how satisfying jewelry-making is in terms of instant gratification?! I can connect pretty much anything I like to a pair of earring hooks in five minutes. And, while the selection of rat-themed charms on Etsy is sadly limited, I can find charms in pretty much any shape or theme imaginable for much less money than I had expected.
I even took a pair of very cheap earrings and replaced the hooks with my slightly nicer ones. The power is going to my head – or, perhaps, my ears.
My friends had better prepare to be inundated by teacup earrings, though, as I bought a pack of 20 tiny ceramic teacups. As I currently don't know anyone who needs a set of tiny doll dishes, the only solution is to make more earrings.
I did start on the chessboard, but I lost momentum as I was packing, and so my two-and-a-half rows of squares are sitting next to my bed in hopes that I'll get around to adding the other five-and-a-half rows. I HAVE finished the tea cozy, and am in the process of getting my photos/notes together. I also filmed this, and am working on editing the footage into something that resembles a coherent story. It's only taken seven months to finish this, though, in my defense, I have had a somewhat tumultuous year.
Comments
Post a Comment