They’re ready!

I finished them all, this morning. Huzzah.

Alas, I currently don’t have the funds to buy the proper postal parcels, so they’re all going to be sitting quietly until I have money again.

Sigh. O, fuel… why do we keep needing you?

Since the finings came in gunmetal and black [it was that or silver and gold] I did my best to hide it behind silver and gems. You just can’t get gunmetal stuff that’s easy to appropriate for other purposes. Sorry.

What do you think, bunnybennett? Which set runs the trans-pacific gauntlet first?

Progress at last! Thanks to my new tools, it took roughly five and a half minutes to file the nipples off the back of each stud. So the line-up in picture 2 represents the better part of an hour’s work.

Cumulative, of course. I had to take frequent breaks because, though it’s a small thing to do, it’s a lot of work. My wrists were complaining by the third pair.

I finished the final pair this morning, and now they’re all in their intended destinations, drying nicely.

Tonight, I should be able to add the dangly pieces with no worries at all.

Eureka! To the right, an ex-stud earring with the dreaded ‘nipple’. To the left, the ex-stud earring with the ‘nipple’ almost gone.

The solution to the cursed ‘metal nipple’ problem is to have two very important things: a hand vice, and a set of fine metal files.

The hand vice pictured here has some foam pieces cut off a bit of leftover underlay so nothing nasty happens to the bit that’s going to show.

The back of the piece in the vice is fucked up because of my prior attempts with sandpaper. It won’t be visible by the time I’m done.

And yes, it takes a bit of a while to file a ‘nipple’ flat… but it’s worth it.

bunnybennett, you shall have some shiny bling. International postal departments willing, of course.

I tried to give up. I tried to let it go.

I can’t.

Some part of me is upset that bunnybennett thinks she can’t have earrings to wear.

But this time, I’m staying on the shoestring. And I’m not putting all my eggs in one metaphorical basket. [Besides, I have to save a bit for postage]

I used a hole punch on the cardboard that came with the clip-on finings[findings?] to turn it into a display thing like it came off the rack somewhere. Attempts to white-out the store logo were a dismal failure. Sigh.

The bottom pair are fine, hanging off the bottom, but the top holes needed to be enlarged for shipping.

Would putting them in a plastic baggie be overkill?