After writing about the 5 essential earrings every gal should own, I realized my {somewhat massive} earring collection was lacking in the neutrals category. Mind you, I have plenty of browns and blacks, silver and gold, but I have a major gap when it comes to white/cream.
Since I already have such an abundance of earrings, I try not to add to my collection unless I’m traveling {earrings are some of my favorite souvenirs}. I wanted to re-imagine a pair I already had to fill in this hole in my neutral repertoire.
As I scanned my earrings I kept coming back to a pair that I bought at a dollar store and hadn’t worn in a while. I’ve noticed that as my personal style has gotten more casual {jeans and a t-shirt with accessories}, I wear more understated earrings. I still love dangly, chandelier earrings but I wear them far less frequently than simple hoops or shorter drop earrings. So, I thought this inexpensive, longer pair of earrings would be a good candidate for transformation. They were neutral enough but I wasn’t a huge fan of the cool silver paired with the warmer toned brown beads.
My first task was removing the beads. Luckily, I didn’t have to whip out wire cutters. The wire was flimsy enough for me to bend and stretch the loop holding the beads enough to slip right off. Just detaching the beads was a big improvement!
I really liked the design of the silver piece, but, as I said, I was missing white in my earring wardrobe. Spray paint seemed like an easy fix. It was! I happened to have some glossy white Krylon spray paint already. After taping over the part that would be in my ear, I gave the earrings two coats of paint. You could absolutely do this with acrylic paint and a brush, I just liked the convenience of spray paint. Less clean up…
The spray paint doesn’t give perfect coverage, which I happen to love. A few more coats and I could have gotten an opaque look, but I like the patina that my transformed earrings now have.
Since it’s so easy to transform earrings with spray paint, I may start hunting dollar stores and thrift stores for earrings that just need a little color change.
Have you transformed a pair of earrings? I’d love to hear what you did!
Emily C Gardner 