Day 174 - homemade mosaics

I made these.

I found a super awesome, super dangerous craft shop at Long Beach Mall in Noordhoek. Seriously, I could spend all my money in there in order to make more earrings. I flipping drive there all the way from Kenilworth (I've gotten very Capetonian about distances: 25 k's is very freaking far for me now). I got all the stuff I made these with from that shop. And I will go back. As I said, it's dangerous.

And, yes, the different colours are deliberate, because too much symmetry is boring. And, yes, also, I did just reference a Jim Carrey film. Because it's pretty damned hilarious.

Day 173 - silver fan chandeliers

So it turns out 173 is too many for me to hold in my head. I had to do a complete reorganise of my collection to separate those pairs that I've worn from those that I still haven't worn. The result is that the ones I've worn almost completely fill my storage area:

Compare this to the beginning.

But I still have a substantial number that I haven't worn yet so I have had to call in my super handy creative friend Mandy to come up with a new storage solution for me. Stay tuned.

Day 172 - mismatched whale tail

I've managed to lose the partners of both these earrings so I paired them together on Friday. Makes life more interesting I think.

I seem to be following a trend with recent posts, going from shells and Finding Nemo to mesh hoops that made me think of whales to today's whale tail. Totally not planned.

Day 171 - mesh hoops

Well the title pretty much says it all - these are silver mesh hoops. They sort of put me in mind of a whale's mouth: the baleen. Since I already mentioned Finding Nemo in the last post, I feel I should make a different reference to whales at this point. So I will mention a Sierra game I replayed (for about the trillionth time) recently, King's Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella.

Holy hell, but climbing that damned whale's tongue was a pain in the butt! And the twinkly fall-down-oh-no-I'm-dazed-now sound effect got to be really freaking annoying after the seventh time.

Looking at the picture now I see this whale has teeth rather than baleen, which is a bit odd. I had in my head the notion that only sperm whales had teeth (I think QI lied to me about that), but a quick Google visit has relieved me of that misconception.

Day 170 - shell hoops

Another pair I bought in Kenya. Simple yet effective, just the way I like 'em. And the shells give me a nice, if tenuous, reason to throw in a clip from Finding Nemo, because I watched it the other day and was reminded of how much I love that film:

Day 169 - silver leaf diamonds

A familiar layout here with the 1-2-3-4-3-2-1 arrangement like the blue ones from day 97. I like the arrangement because it's simple and effective and with light, fun shapes like these, you get a pleasing sparkly end product that also makes a fun tinkling sound. Perfect Kim earrings, really.

Day 168 - silver sprays

I haven't the foggiest clue where these might've come from but I really quite like them, if that's not an oddly oxymoronic combination of adverbs. They do tend to blow about a bit and poke me in the eye sometimes, but what can you expect from long pointy bits of metal?

Day 167 - black and white beads

These are from my mum, who I saw over the weekend (yes, I flew to Jo'burg just for the weekend; no, I don't recommend it as a regular thing). She gave a handful of smaller earrings and said maybe I could turn them into something wearable (read: bigger).

Day 166 - flying pigs

Another pair of earrings that started out as Christmas decorations. I got a set of three of these from Santa last year. One now adorns my desk at work but these two get to travel around a bit more in the form of earrings.

Day 165 - silver loops

This is a pretty little pair that I've had for years. And, at the risk of sounding like Forrest Gump, that's really all I have to say about that.

Day 164 - big wooden Africas

This is another set of earrings that started life as key rings. I'm pretty sure I got the originals from the Milnerton market.

Day 163 - green iridescent circles

These were definitely a gift from my oldest, most treasured friend. I should take pains to point out that by oldest I don't mean that she is old, but that of my friends I have known her for the longest time. We met when we were four and it was instant kinship.

I don't know what the material is called that these are made out of but it changes colour depending on the angle you look at it. A little bit of Googling taught me about labradorite and its tendency to display labradorescence, which is not in fact a burning desire to chase balls or frolic in the river or even to lead blind people around the place. It is rather an iridescent optical effect or, technical term here, schiller. These may or may not be labradorite showing labradorescence, but I've learned a new word that I need to work into general conversation at the earliest possible opportunity. Do I know any geologists...?

Day 162 - fish skeletons

My earring enabler calls these my dead fish earrings because they do have a certain fishbones shape to them. I'm pretty sure they're another Chinatown special.

Day 161 - wooden drops

These actually used to be bigger - they had a third, larger drop under the brown ones. But because they're made of quite thin wood, one snapped so I dismantled them to keep them symmetrical (though why I felt the need to do that I cannot now recall - asymmetry is so much more fun).

I may have to source some wood from somewhere and attack it with some glitter pen so I can return these to their former glory. I wonder if then they will count as a new pair I can showcase here. Hmmm.

Day 160 - blue starfish

The second pair of Christmas decorations that I turned into earrings. These are quite ridiculously big, I will admit, but I still enjoy wearing them, if for no other reason than that they are guaranteed to get a reaction. I wore them for Casual Day a couple of years ago when the theme was "Big":

Day 159 - swanky gold circles

I'm pretty sure these are also from Accessorize with Style in Nairobi.

I had to call them "swanky" because that was the theme of the party I went to in these on Saturday night. A swanky affair indeed, although I will admit that it got slightly less swanky and slightly more studenty as the night wore on and the tequila flowed. I could've been back at Rhodes, except of course that the drinks we were buying were of considerably higher quality than the ones we could afford back in Grahamstown. Because we're grown-ups now. Apparently.

Day 158 - pink bead strings

My aunt gave me a whole bunch of her old earrings a couple of years ago, including this fun pair. She had quite an extensive collection too but a lot of them she can't wear any more because her ear lobes have become sensitive to the metals of the hooks. This is quite a common affliction - I know many people who can't wear anything in their ears except pure silver, gold or, sometimes, stainless steel. I most certainly do not have this problem - my oft-abused ear lobes will wear any old junk. Thank goodness. Otherwise my collecting would be a much more expensive hobby!

Day 157 - Kenyan circles

Yet another pair purchased in Kenya. I love so much about this pair: the shapes, the colours, the distinctiveness - all reasons I simply had to buy them.

Day 156 - gold diamanté hoops

 

Another standalone pair of hoops, almost certainly from Woollies. They're slightly unusual for me since they have blingy diamanté bits on them. I don't generally go in for sparkly (though I realise one or two past posts may beg to differ) and find diamonds (or these cheap imposters) particularly uninspiring. I'm always puzzled by people's excitement over engagement ring diamonds, for instance. Oh look, a colourless stone. How thrilling. If you're going to go for an expensive precious stone, I reckon, much more interesting to have a sapphire or a ruby - something with a bit of colour.

Day 155 - blue ellies

These began their life as keyrings, actually, as many of my home-made earrings have. I bought them from the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Nairobi when I went there recently.

The trunks are up on these little beauties, which gives me the perfect reason to share a classic bit from one of my family's all-time favourite bad films, The Castle (1997):

If you haven't seen it, I urge you to watch it. It's a bloody ripper! And I guarantee that you will be quoting lines from it in a terrible Australian accent within minutes.

Day 154 - giraffes

I can't remember where I got these but I definitely bought them with the sole intention of turning them into earrings. In fact it was my cousin who insisted I buy them for that reason. So it may have been the Watershed craft market at the V&A is where I purchased them. Ultimately, they're cute, no matter where I got them.

Day 153 - Kenyan waterfalls

As may be obvious from the title, these pretty things I bought in Kenya (did I mention I went to Kenya?). They are set to be a firm favourite of mine from now on because I spent the majority of the day in bed (it's Saturday, OK) so only wore these for a few hours in the evening and yet got numerous compliments on them. In fact, now I come to think of it, I got complimented numerous times not only on my earrings this evening but also on my hair and my outfit. It's as if the universe realised that this week has kicked my butt somewhat (seriously, this has been a kak week) and subtly told everyone to be nice to me. I'll take it.

Day 152 - skeletons

I'm pretty sure these were a present from Santa a few years ago. They're usually my Halloween earrings, for obvious reasons, but I felt like wearing them on Friday. So I did.

Day 151 - silver wols

I think I got these from a little gifty shop in the Howard Centre in Pinelands. Usually anything even vaguely owl-shaped is immediately bought for my mother, who loves these birds. But these I bought for me. I'm pretty sure my mum already has a pair like this anyway.

Just a side note, in case anyone starts to doubt my editing abilities, that the heading for this post is not a typo or a spelling mistake but is intentional. In my family we have our own little language (as do most families I imagine) and owls are referred to as "wols". Why? Hoo knows.

Day 150 - purple Christmas stars

I was wandering through Checkers one September when I came across a number of gaudy Christmas decorations for sale. My first reaction was not a spluttering, outraged "Oh come on, it's only freaking September!" nor was it even a revolted "Good grief, those are kitsch". No, my first gut reaction was a delighted "Oooh! Earrings!" I promptly bought two of each of three of these outrageous baubles and swapped their fishing line hoops for French hooks. These are the smallest of the three.

They got lots of reactions on Wednesday when I wore them. One lady shouted across the street at me on my way to the train station that she loved my earrings. And a man in the lift of my office building also complimented me on them.

Day 149 - Chinatown drops

More proof, as if it was actually in any doubt, that Chinatown is a favourite earring-buying destination for me. Again, it's the simplicity of the design that I particularly like. I also quite like the picture for this pair since you can see my iPad cover reflected in them which amuses me.

Day 148 - White Rabbit Days Frida

An unusual occurrence: I can confidently tell you exactly where I got these and the circumstances behind the acquisition. My boss got me a pair of earrings for my birthday last year (a pair I haven't yet worn in this challenge now I come to think of it) that are made of leather, which I found very unusual. I remember her telling me they came from a shop in Cape Town but promptly forgot any other detail, as I am prone to do. I was thinking about them a couple of weeks ago (just before I left for Kenya in fact) and Googled "leather earrings Cape Town" to try to find the shop (because why would I just ask Jo where she got them? That would be, like, logical or something). The results led me to White Rabbit Days. They have the most wonderful collection of designs. I spent a blissful couple of hours perusing the site. And, inevitably, I bought a pair. This pair. Frida.

Day 147 - crystal eggs

Another pair with plastic crystal, this time in the shape of eggs. Well, OK, they're spheres but I'm calling them eggs so I can plug the latest play on at the Masque: A Day in the Death of Joe Egg. It's a lovely play that deals with a hard subject matter (raising a disabled child) but it does so in a very light and funny way. For the most part - it did make me cry at the end.

I may be biased because they're my friends but I thought the actors did a superb job. I was enthralled and didn't notice the time passing, which is loosely how I define a good show. I generally sit with my shoes off and my feet up and under me; when I'm at the theatre, I can't just throw off my shoes and get comfy so I have to sit like a civilised adult. If I notice how unnatural that feels, then whatever I'm watching has not held my attention sufficiently. With Joe Egg, I didn't notice once that I was being forced to sit like an actual grown-up. Weird praise that may be, but praise it is. Well done CTP!