Craft Time: Earring Repair and Modifications

Unwinding over summer break, I've been crocheting, doing chores, creating print-on-demand items, binge-watching streaming series (I just finished The Great), and working in the greenhouse.  So far, we have basil, cherry tomatoes, and zucchini in production, with small apples dotting our trees in the front and back yards. It feels good to grow our own food, even if it is only for a few months out of the year. 

I set some summertime goals for myself at the end of the school year: catch up on reading and reviewing picture books that publishers have sent for Kansas Reading Circle; crochet some wearables other than scarves and cowls; create teacher tees for all fifty states and list them on Etsy; find some pretty picture frames for photos that I've decided I'd like to have within easy sight and put all of the others in albums in chronological order as best I can; read some more intermediate chapter books so I can continue to recommend interesting titles to older students (twenty-five years as a kindergarten teacher has me swimming in picture book familiarity); declutter here and there; and work on more assemblage jewelry items.  

Today, I dabbled in some repair and modification of some earrings that I'd like to wear during the upcoming school year.

Setting newly-framed photos aside, I took out my pliers so I could remove jump rings and button-backs from some "librarian" earrings.  Students always commented on Dogman, the Pigeon, and other book characters, but the glittery buttons just didn't feel great when I wore them.

Beads, pearls, headpins, cutters, earring wire, jump rings... my creativity is messy.

I tried figuring out some complimentary bead combos, and after checking in the mirror, figured out how long I'd like each earring to hang.  Some of my Alaskan beaded earrings needed new earwires, while others worked with leverbacks. 

So much better!  And one more thing checked off of my summer to-do list.