Custom Creepy Earrings & My Bestie Niobium

Gone are the days when I could wear safety pins as earrings. My ears or should I say my ear piercings are fickle. I have cheap earrings made of who knows what, that don't give me problems and others with labels like nickel-free, hypoallergenic or surgical steel, that do. Which makes sense, if you actually try to make sense of the little regulation there is concerning costume jewelry. It's not surprising that seeing if my ears start to burn and turn red is a much more exact science then trying to figure out if those labels actually equate to any kind of standard or not.  

 

That's why niobium is my bestie, it's non-allergenic. I've also never had a problem with my titanium hoops, but then body jewelry standards are more stringent.  For this post I'm only using premade earring wires and those are readily available in niobium. I'm just going to show a few easy earrings you can make, but it's also just as easy to replace earring wires for that pair of earrings that you love, but are allergic to.

For the whys and what's of stainless steel, titanium and niobium this is good info.

I've successfully purchased niobium earring wires and other things from Artbeads.com, Beadaholique.com and Fusionbeads.com. They all carry relatively the same earring wires, at similar prices and they all offer free shipping for purchases over $25. The only factor determining which one I buy from, is who has what I want in stock. And no, there is no incentive for me to push any of these vendors, just stating my experience.

The following earrings all follow the KISS method. Keep It Simple Stupid. And if you do that, you too can have mildly fabulous allergen free earrings with minimal effort. So prepare to be underwhelmed and I say that with all sincerity. These examples are not meant to wow you or make you wonder in awe at the time or talent it must have taken to make them. This is a quick and dirty way to make inexpensive kitschy ghoulish earrings that won't burn your ear holes.

This is the simplest way to create an earring. One earring wire plus one charm equals one delightfully macabre earring. The loop of the earring wire is opened and closed just like a jump ring. To do this you need two small pliers. If you are worried about scratching the earring components smooth pliers are better than ones with teeth or you can cover the tips with painters tape.

You'll see I use this style of earring wire a lot. I like the look of the decorative wire coil. It almost looks like it's a wire wrapped loop, but it is not. The only disappointing thing is I've only seen it available in bronze.

I believe my desire to wear bugs on my ears was influenced by this movie, Bug. I was 3 years old when I saw it at the drive-in, with my parents of questionable judgement, in a double feature that also included the movie The Food of the Gods. In my parents defense I'm sure they thought I was too young to grasp what was going on. Which is partly true, for years I had no idea what movies were responsible for the various horrifying scenes that played through my memories and certainly no context of the storylines.

Even if you don't plan on going crazy making jewelry, having the superpower to open and close a jump ring is priceless. If you have jewelry that's too long, too short, too busy, or has a stupid clasp, a lot of the time you can easily modify it by adding, removing or replacing components via jump rings.

Here we have three tiny charms on three tiny jump rings (3mm) joined to the earring wire with a small jump ring (5mm). Again all you need is two pliers to open and close the jump rings. 

Almost the same as the previous earrings, the difference with these earrings is they used to be part of a necklace and the oval jump ring is a link from a chain. Note, that sometimes chain links are soldered and sometimes that solder can be broken by grasping the link on either side with pliers and wiggling them back and forth. I would not do this with a really expensive chain. 

In fact I wouldn't do any of this with anything expensive. I'm too much of a barbarian to have expensive or dainty things. My husband bought me a wedding ring with the diamonds channel set for durability.  And I still don't wear it, because I'm always do stuff with tools or my hands are covered in messy or gross stuff. I was always taking it off and I figured that would end with me permanently misplacing it. So my ring stays safe in a box and I occasionally bring it out to wear when I know for sure I won't be playing in mud, paint or salmonella. So like once every three years.   

But I digress, the take away from these earrings is you don't necessarily have to buy charms, you can rape and pillage jewelry you might already own. Or clearanced Halloween jewelry, but more on that in my next post.

And same concept again, this time a large decorative chain link shares the same jump ring as the charm. This earring wire came with the bead already on it.

The possibilities are endless, there are charms for every creepy crawly, or Halloween thing you can think of. 

Do keep size in mind when ordering online. Actually get out a ruler, see what 15mm looks like. Draw it on a piece of paper and hold it up to your ear. 

Also think about weight, which is a little harder to gauge online. Back in the old days you could just walk into a store and hold a charm in your hand. A small charm shouldn't be too heavy, but if you start getting more into pendant size, it might be a problem. Unless you like that look where your earring wire is weighted down so far it appears to be only a hairsbreadth away from ripping through your lobe.