Simple Butterfly Earrings

Hello everyone!

Yes, yes, I'm alive. Please don't die of surprise or anything. My humble little blog is indeed in your feed again. I apologize for my absence but blogging, while something I really enjoy, isn't something I make money on so I do this for fun. I must answer to the needs of the rest of my life when they beckon and lemme tell ya that they've been screaming lately.

I won't bore you all with the details but suffice it to say that I'm keeping very busy with the work I'm doing for Random Acts (more on that in a moment) as well as my belly dancing! My very first public show is coming up soon and I'm super excited.

Before I bore you with any more talk of my personal life, let me share with you the project I whipped up in my meager free time!

These are my brand spanking new butterfly wing earrings. I don't know about you but I LOVE butterflies. They're such a great reminder of spring and what with me living down here in Georgia, spring is already well on it's way. I decided to whip up something simple to make me smile. This is the kind of thing you can make in an afternoon.

Just take printable shrink plastic (you can get the inkjet kind at Michael's and I always recommend using a 40-50% off coupon that they e-mail out!) and pop it into your printer. Now go out and find yourself some lovely photos of butterfly wings. I found science sites were good for this as they splay the wings out just right. Put your photos into an editing system like Photoshop or Paint. Line up all your wing images so you get maximum use from your shrink paper. You don't need the bodies of the butterflies, just the wings.

Then just print them out, use a hole punch to make holes in both ends (or where ever you like) and bake according to instructions. Once they come out of the oven, I like to flatten them while still hot by using a book. This next step is entirely up to you but I then dusted some pearl powder on my wings in the colors that matched the wings most. It gives them a nice shimmer. To finish, just spray with some kind of sealant. I use Krylon Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze. That helps make them a little more water resistant.

Then just attach your earring hooks to the top holes using a simple jumpring. I also attached some cute sparkly crystals at the bottoms too so they shimmer more. You can spice it up by gluing on rhinestones if you like, or you can leave them plain. I liked just a touch of shine to mine.

You can also make them into a necklace like I did here so I have a matching set. :) The center is a dangle with a seed pearl and more crystals. It looks really pretty when the light hits it.

So that's it. Simple, fast, and just cute enough to welcome in spring. :)

Now, if anyone is still reading this, then I assume you're interested in what's going on with Random Acts! If you're wondering right now "What the heck is this nutjob talking about?", then allow me to explain.

I work for a non-profit organization called Random Acts. We do random acts of kindness for people and try to get others to join in on the fun so that all over the world, people are doing nice things for each other. Well we're having an Annual Melee Of Kindness (We're running AMOK) this Sunday and we're inviting everyone around the world to join us. If you're interested in participating (and no, we aren't asking you to donate anything or even affiliate with us) then you can read up on it at our site.

As part of my own silly participation, my friends Jenni, Tina, Jaime, and I are going to wander about a public park giving away flowers, balloons and candy to everyone we meet.

Why, you ask?

Because it's silly. It's fun. It might brighten someone's day when they really need it. It might make the difference for someone who's never been given a flower before. Maybe we'll meet a bunch of people who are too grumpy for flowers or maybe we'll be mobbed by people wanting them. Either way, we're going to wander about till our flowers and such are gone. :)

Hope someone comes along to brighten your day too!

Linked up here:

    

House Wars: The Pain Returns

Guh. It's been a very busy week for me but I thought I'd update you all on where we stand with the house hunting. Last I'd mentioned, we'd put in an offer on a home that we really liked. We've spent much of the past few weeks fighting out the details of the contract, how much we'll pay, earnest money, ect. We finally settled on a price and all that jazz and the time for inspections had come. 

Suffice it to say, I was excited. We were so close! Soon we'd have the keys and move into our own place. I was beside myself. I was already picking out paint colors and where the couch would go. 

The inspector went out yesterday and did his walk through. No biggie, right? 

WRONG. 

He came back and informed us that whoever had done the additions onto this house had apparently not bothered with little things like permits and they'd built the addition onto the two main load bearing joists without enough support. 

Image from icanhascheezeburger.com

So yeah. That's about how I felt. It's never a good thing when the inspector looks at something and says "Ooo...you want a structural engineer in here to look at this. This is outside of my scope." *sigh* One of the joists was cracked, the other was bent. The inspector said within the next 10 years at most, we'd have a new sunroof in our master bedroom once that ceiling gave up and moved downstairs. Yeah, not something I want to wake up to. Or, worse, not to wake up FROM.  

Thus, we're back on the market again. We'll start this process all over and hopefully you'll all get even more entertainment out of what we stumble across. 

Till next time, thanks for reading!