Design-a-Day: Dichroic Earrings

I do not have the promised "after" pictures of yesterday's pendants. Bad Karen! I was on a packaging tear today, manufacturing earring and pendant cards and mounting finished pieces for the show I'm going to next Saturday (come visit me! Saturday, April 19th in Greenbelt, MD -- visit my show list for directions). I used the scrapbooking paper border idea from Barb Macy's fabulous tutorial, and they look pretty nice.

As a consolation, I have a "before" photo of today's first kiln load: dichroic earrings. I don't have a saw, so my earrings always turn out blobby, so I avoid making them. Today, though, inspired by the pine-tree-shaped pendant from yesterday's pendant run, I made a bunch of tiny versions. I put them in in the morning, so they finished annealing and cooling in time for me to design another load of pendants that's cooking now.

The earrings turned out great, but they're so delicate that I have no idea how to put them on something that can be attached to ear wires! The traditional dangly earring hardware used for attaching glass is very chunky, and these, with their wee little points on top, don't cover up the backing. The best idea I've come up with is tiny drop charms. There are itty-bitty diamond-coated drill bits for this purpose, but I don't have any. It might be time!