How old were you when you had your ears pierced?

Folks,

When I was a teenager, I wanted one thing. Just one thing. To have my ears pierced. Yes, I know. I didn't go out much.

It was my dream to wear dangling earrings and I nagged my poor mother to death until one day when I was either 17 or 18, she caved in and took me to a goldsmith shop because that was how her ears were pierced. An old woman dabbed some alcohol on my ear lobes and after burning a needle with a lighter, she proceeded to pierce my ear lobe with the needle.

Holy crap! I did not think through the actual ear piercing process carefully. I did not think about my skin being pierced at all. Yes, this mother$#@#$ was sticking a needle in my ear lobe and I let her. I let her. Not only did I let her, after my screams had died down, I turned and let her pierce the other ear lobe. I was that vain.

I was told the pain would go away in a while. She lied. Anyway, I got to select a pair of gold earrings which my poor mother had to fork over hard earned money for. Until my ear lobes healed, I wore a temporary earring. It was just two pieces of stick.

I put up with swollen ear and skin and throbbing pain for many weeks. I wonder why I did not die. I also wonder why I did not storm back to the goldsmith and ask if she had done it right. Eventually my piercing healed and I got to wear my gold earrings. They were not dangling, by the way as the dangling ones were too expensive. But my plan was to buy cheap costume dangling earrings to wear.

Alas, my skin turned out to be super sensitive and every time I wore the cheap stuff, my ear swelled and sometimes the holes leaked.

It was gross but I continued to wear the cheap dangling earrings, even to school. The prefects in my school would book me for wearing dangling earrings and demand I remove them. It was a never ending harassment. I thought that after all the pain I went through, I deserved to wear whatever I wanted on my ears. Yes, I was a earring rebel.

Anyway, my BFF started to have ear lobe envy and one day I accompanied her to get her ears pierced. Unlike me, she had seen a sign at a shop that said "No pain ear piercing" and she wanted that. So, it turned out to be not painful for her. Because there was a modern way of piercing ear - with an instrument that looked like a giant stapler. I decided to get my ear stapled as well as the holes that the old lady had dug for me were slanted and it was a major affair just to wear a pair of earrings. The ear stapling hurt just for a few seconds and that was it. I felt like an idiot. 

Years later, I realised my skin would only tolerate real gold or surgical steel.

Now, where was I?

As you know, my beading has to be kept to a minimum nowadays and so I thought, why not make earrings as they're small and won't require much time. I mean, sometimes I have to let my kids have the computers and that would give me time to do a little beading.

Without further ado.....

You betcha the first earrings I made were super dangling ones. These are made using bugle beads from Tiba's stash and some Miyuki delicas. Oh, I think fireline is not a good idea when making dangling stuff. Too stiff.

These are just simple brick stitch earrings. I used Toho beads.

This pair of earrings took a very, very long time to make. I discovered that making small stuff sometimes take a whole day. I made the mistake of making the first one and then stopping for a week or so and then made the other one. The problem with this is that the second time I made it, I was feeling very hot and a bit agitated. That affected my thread tension and as a result, the second one feels a little tighter. I don't think I'll ever make this again. The beads are very small and hard to see and the worst part is the red beads are all mixed up in the container and sieving through them takes a lifetime. I had bought these beads before for a previous project and there's so much of it left.

If these earrings look familiar to you, you're very observant. I had made a similar bracelet before.

Remember this bracelet? Matching jewellery. I feel so spoilt.

And now for the failures. The diamond shaped one is too big and too uneven. I feel it's my choice of beads. I think maybe using cube beads will work better. The second one with the pearls is just ugly with poor choice of colours.

Let's partay! Sew Many Ways