Confessions of a Crystal Hoarder Blog

Confessions of a Crystal Hoarder Blog

I'm All Ears

Posted by Elizabeth Hamilton on Nov 2nd 2012

This month we wanted to hear from you and see what you've been up to with your Hoard treasures. And in honor of the listening theme in this blog I'm all ears—or at least all earrings. 


Earrings are a quick and easy path to victory. An embroidered collar may take me 40 hours, but earrings fly!

Every month our club boxes yield a treasure trove of earring supplies. Some items such as the pom-pom danglers from last month require only the addition of an earwire, while links or double-holed sequins (like the lavender links from September) can be combined with items from our personal hoards for dramatic results.

These two pairs of earrings feature danglers that are surprisingly lightweight. The black earrings (top) are plastic faceted drops linked to filigree that I've painted black. The beads in the links are Czech glass bicones from our club boxes. The filigree are slightly cupped, so I could always add a rivoli to the center for more sparkle.

The avocado earrings on the bottom are a trifecta of Hoard Treasures! The Bakelite danglers are from the very first club box, the links arrived in July, and the earwires are from August. It reminds me of the toys that I used to get in kids' meals..."limited edition- collect all three!"

These two pairs were also super-simple.

All it took was a pair of Miriam Haskell leaves to whip up earrings perfect for fall.

I added black cabs from one of our boxes to stampings from another, and created a pair of earrings that look perfectly vintage.

I also made a version using those stampings where I added patina (Sharpie- of course!) and some miracle bead cabochons from my collection.

As much as the photography guides warn against ever using a flash for photographing 

jewelry, I just couldn't resist in this case.

Both of these pairs combine club beads with chain from the Hoard.

These took a little longer. The cabochons are from the very first club box, and were mounted on Ultrasuede. I added a peyote bezel and used a simple whip-stitch to stitch the front to the back.

This last pair I made in hopes of having a holiday event that will be perfect for them...of course now I'll need to make an outfit to go with them as well...

I added Jet double AB chatons to the blank fan stampings from my treasure box. I do not own one of those fancy suction tools, so each chaton was placed by sticky finger. I have some Burt's Bees Hand Salve that makes my fingers just tacky enough to get the chaton from my mat to the glue.

Since the fans are connected via chain rather than wired together, they move when I wear them, which causes them to shimmer.

The winner for the October club design contest is......drum roll please.....Christine Wilson for her cuff bracelet design. Many thanks to all that entered. All the entries were very good and it was a really hard decision to