What do you get when you combine clip-on earrings, colorful chains, and the spirit of speakeasy glam? (And while I'm asking ridiculous questions, why do I, a teetotaler, make so many references to alcohol on this blog?) The answer (to the first question; the answer to the second is best found at the bottom of a Dr. Pepper bottle) is collar clips! Until now I've owned exactly one, a clear rhinestone affair from Hobby Lobby. But I've long admired these adorable adornments and wanted to grow my collection. Not quite brooches and not quite necklaces, they're the outliers of the jewelry world dangling, albeit dazzlingly, somewhere in the balance. Despite my earlier tip of the newsboy cap to the 1920s, they make me think of the 1950s. Something to do with sweater sets and Peter Pan collars, I guess.
Clip-on earrings, by the way, aren't easy to find. The black teardrops were my mom's (although I added the crystals), and I stumbled upon the other three pairs on a Kohl's clearance rack. I considered wearing the new ones as intended for like a minute before remembering that those little metal chompers are murder on the earlobes. Far better, I decided, for them to grip the unfeeling flesh of a polyester button-down.
At first, I was a little leery that the clips and/or chains wouldn't lay right, but these turned out to be some of the easiest accessories I've ever made. Also, working on them was kind of addicting. (So much so that I went ahead and spangled a bargain brooch with Swarovski too.) I can't help but daydream about finding an estate sale full of '80s earrings in rainbow rhinestones and plastic (bonus points for any with petrified ear wax. Hey, if that kid in the Cottonelle commercial can say that she feels "as clean as a crystal castle," then I can, ahem, wax poetic about this.) And who knows? Maybe some Cyndi Lauper superfan's castoffs will embellish the blouses of today's Panic! at the Disco devotees. Speaking of which, I feel as sparkly as a sequin serape (Google it, it's a thing. Sort of.) whenever I hear "High Hopes." Especially this part:
"Mama said
It's uphill for the oddities
The stranger crusaders
Ain't ever wannabes
The weird and the novelties
Don't ever change
We wanted everything, we wanted everything"
I know I'm preaching to the choir, but this song speaks to me because it says that it's harder to do what you want when you're different. But that you can't let that stop you, that you have to keep going and hope all the harder.
Which is a lot more get-it-girl (or guy) than that Sandra Bullock-Harry Connick, Jr. romance Hope Floats. But then, I don't think that this '90s summer snoozefest was meant to be anything more than a fling. Still, it wasn't Sandra's fault.
As always, I think I'll blame Harry.
3 comments:
chains look beautiful....
have a great day
You are so creative, it's inspiring!! I love what you did with the clip-on earrings, and they really pop against those blouses. That was brilliant about the "wax poetic"...LOL!!! My favorite line: "...it's harder to do what you want when you're different. But that you can't let that stop you, that you have to keep going and hope all the harder." Beautifully said! And, Hope Notes...Hope Floats...I love it, hahaha!
Collar clips, yes, we need more of them!
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