Use Your Leftovers | Earrings Everyday Challenge

It's become a fun tradition to participate in the last Earrings Everyday challenge of each year. You see, for the past several years, Erin has made the challenge all about using up the leftovers still on your desk after a big crafting session. First, let me apologize that I didn't include this challenge in my December Inspiration List as I actually didn't see it until this week! Sorry!! Even worse is that I didn't get started on the challenge until yesterday. 

Erin encourages participants to place their supplies in a muffin tin or other divided tray to help organize everything before the making begins. It really helps!

But, to begin, I had to scour my desk for what to use. I found that I had a bowl of inspiration from my Using Vintaj Patinas crafting session. 

There were also lovely little sets of keys that one of my best friends had gifted me for my birthday. I had fortunately paired everything up for use as earrings eventually. Perfect!

I narrowed down the pieces that felt the most inspiring at the moment. 

Then, a lightbulb went off. You see, Erin takes the opportunity to make the Leftovers challenge a Giveaway as well. And, last year I won! However, I realized I've been hoarding the goodies she sent me, and they were still on a shelf behind me. 

In addition to these beauties, she included a little pack of findings too. But, I focused in on these for the challenge and added a couple to my tin. 

And, here's what I made.

These large shapes were my favorites from my Vintaj session, and I couldn't wait to use them. Since they are so large, they didn't need but a small compliment to finish them. I only added a pair of salvaged red beads flanked by bead caps and ear wires before calling them done. 

Knowing I wanted to include some tin in my earrings, these came into being. 

The hearts on the keys drew me to the tiny tins with hearts on them. However, I'm now questioning my use of the blue beads and wondering why I didn't just use red ones (or something else entirely). These may get reworked. 

Again, I knew the selected Vintaj piece didn't need much added. 

To prevent these from being too fussy, I punched a second hole on them from which to dangle a gold-colored glass bead.

I love these! They incorporate the two bead sets I selected from my winnings from last year. 

The Humblebeads bead and glass bead just felt right together. I have to admit that it took me FOREVER to find the holes in those glass beads. I've never seen holes run in that direction on a teardrop. Initially, I was going to wrap them so the points faced up, but it felt better to let their uniqueness shine. I only added bead caps and spacers to these.

Another favorite pair in the bunch are these.

I did add holes to each corner of both of the Vintaj blanks before dangling the little crystals and adding the hanger. But, that was all they needed. I think they're romantic and fabulous.

Again, I turned to my tin to make this final pair of earrings.

These were ones I experimented with acrylic paint pouring on. I sealed them with a gloss varnish before punching a hole and adding the little gold keys. I think they're cute.

So, that wraps it up for me. I'm so happy I found Erin's challenge at the last minute and was able to bust out a few designs for it. I hope you were able to play along. Don't fret if you just heard about the challenge too. Erin will have the linky tool open until the end of the year so you can join in and maybe even win the goodies she's offering up for this year's giveaway. And, even if you just can't participate, make sure to head over to the Earrings Everyday We're All Ears reveal to get some inspiration from Erin and the other participants.