homemade Christmas gifts 2.0

I drew my sister Bobbi for sibling gifts this year. While I struggled a lot to come up with anything, the biggest issue proved to be the $20 limit we have for making these gifts.

The only thing I could come up for Bobbi would be jewelry. She is fancy and feminine, and it packs in a suitcase easily so she doesn't have issues with the TSA when she flies back home to Arizona.

My project was brilliant-- or so I initially thought. Making earrings from scratch is definitely not the funnest time I've ever had. I thought I'd make a mold to start, so all my earrings would be the same shape and size. Short story: that idea did NOT work. Waste of time and money. Instead, I carefully dripped epoxy into circles on wax paper for hours. And ruined most of them. And ended up mostly with misshapen blobs. I just cover up the pain of this project with cliches like "it gives them character!" and "it's the thought that counts."

I used this resin kit. It was OK to work with, but I do wish it dried harder. That was probably a "user" issue, not a product one, though.

LOOK AT THE BEAUTIFUL GLITTER!! I was so excited to have an excuse to buy all that sparkle! I chose a color from each area of the color wheel, and combined the resin and glitter. As you'll see, not all of those actually worked. Boo. Once the blobs were dry, I attached earring posts with glue.

And here's the final product. Certainly not my best work, but considering the time, energy, and tears that went into them, I called it quits at this point. I used a piece of cardboard, poked holes though, and stuck the earrings in . . . Just like you see in stores, only with more "character."

A couple days later we were at a craft store, and saw embellishments that looked exactly like this. Only rounder. And cheaper. And cuter. Sooooo that was encouraging.