May Day Earrings (We're All Ears Reveal)

May Day was the theme selected by Erin of Earrings Everyday for this month's We're All Ears Challenge. She suggested making earrings inspired by floral baskets or cones or even a Maypole. The notion of the flowers was what instantly appealed to me, though I didn't have an idea yet. It was only a couple of days ago that I realized I needed to hop on this challenge before it passed me by. And, I spent an entire afternoon struggling with designs before I finally landed on one that worked for me.

I love how the above earrings came together, but it was a long road to get there. Since I knew I was leaning in the floral direction, I began by thinking I might use tin to make some flowers. However, that seemed a little more complex than I had the time for. Instead, I decided to look through my tin bits to see if there was anything that might work a little more readily. I quickly found the sides from a Mary Engelbreit tin.

I thought that maybe I could cut it so that the yellow part would be a cone or basket with the flowers at the top. So, I tried to make a go of it.

While it is pretty cute in this picture, I couldn't help seeing it as some kind of weird ice cream cone. And, it was awfully big and kinda weird for an earring. So, I knew this wasn't the design for me and put away all my tin.

I sat and thought for a few minutes considering the inspiration. I even toyed with the idea of creating some kind of woven Maypole with kumihimo. But, then I realized that I probably had some glass flower beads in my stash that I could wrangle together into something. Sure enough, I found a small stash of them. I thought that I could use wire and twist them into some sort of bouquet that would fit into some findings to create a cone/basket. I specifically picked a pair of large antiqued brass flower bead caps because the petals were open and would work to attach a basket-handle. However, the wire-twisting was unpredictable and frustrating.

 I twisted three versions of that little bouquet before deciding that that technique just wasn't going to work. In exasperation, I considered just not participating in the challenge this month. But, I finally decided that I couldn't let some flowers get the better of me. 

There was a little bag of ball-end headpins on my bead mat. So, in a last-ditch effort, I stuck one into each of the six flowers I had for each of the earrings then stuffed the whole bunch into the flower bead cap. It looked pretty good. But, what was I going to use to hold them there? Well...I simply twisted one of the ends of a headpin under the base of the bead cap. And, it worked!!

 I pondered how they would hang for a minute or two, then grabbed a couple of long headpins and cut off the head. Simple loops were turned on each end, and the wire was curved over a marker. The loops were connected to the flower bead cap to make the basket handle.

Then, ear wires were added to complete the earrings.

I couldn't believe the solution was so simple. It was a fantastic reminder that sometimes I don't need to overthink things. 

And, the simple loveliness of these just screams of spring. 

Big thanks go out to Erin for the interesting theme. I definitely would not have come up with these beauties without her prompt. Now, head over to Earrings Everyday and check out the other designs made from the inspiration.

Disclaimer: I'm participating in the Amazon Affiliate program and as an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.