I Heart These Earrings

So, as I mentioned a week or so ago, I recently got my ears pierced, and I've been making earrings all over the place in anticipation of being able to wear more cute stuff on my ears. Out of the blue I decided I wanted some cute, simple heart shaped studs and I had some left over brass from previous projects and decided that was the perfect material for these studs. I also took the time to take some progress pictures for you all to enjoy!

You can't tell from this picture, but it's actually two pieces of brass sandwiched and held together with rubber cement. I drew a small heart on a piece of paper and glued it onto the brass for a template.

Cutting cutting! It is very hard to take progress pictures like this with one hand.

Here they are cut out and ready to be filed. It was kind of a pain since they were super tiny, but eventually I managed it.

All done filing, so cute!

To attach the hearts to my earring posts, I used this two part epoxy.

Gluing. I kept having to readjust the posts because I was impatient and kept trying to move the earrings around before the glue had set, so the posts were getting nudged around everywhere.

And here they are complete! Again, I couldn't do any in the ear action shots because the holes are still healing but I really love how they turned out! It's really killing me that I can't wear all these earrings I've been making recently.

Upcycled Leather Jacket No. 2: Dinosaur Edition

Last year I made a purse out of a leather jacket I found at a Goodwill.  It's pretty big, which is nice sometimes but lately I've been wanting a smaller purse to carry essentials in and not have to worry about stuff getting lost in an abyss. Naturally my first instinct was to go to Goodwill and find a leather jacket that I could use, and just my luck, I found exactly one leather jacket in the whole store. It was meant to be!

For this purse I ended up using one of the sleeves and the belt as the strap.

I decided I wanted a little bit of embellishment on this one, so I doodled a little dinosaur design and using a jewelers saw(for the first time) I proceeded to cut it out of some brass.

And here it is completed! I also ended up cutting some corner pieces out of some thinner brass to embellish the corners. I love how it turned out!

Here's a little peek of the inside. The purse has removable straps, a magnetic closure and a zippered pocket on the inside. I love how it turned out, and I can't wait to make a few more purses and whatnot from the rest of the jacket!