Month of Earrings Challenge Finished

Yeah! The month of earrings challenge has finished and I completed it!

The goal was - starting February 1st, to make 30 pairs of earrings by April 1st - that averages out as making one earring a day!

Here are all the earrings - and the link to my Month of Earrings Set on Flickr for a closer look at all 30 pairs and the Month of Earrings Challenge Group on Flickr where you can see everyone who took part.

Here is a breakdown of the earrings:

A. Materials used:

• 19 were made of (at least in part) silver clay

• 2 were made of bronze clay

• 8 were made of hand colored anodized aluminum

• 2 were made of (at least in part) polymer clay

• 1  included resin

 Garden Seat

 B. Subjects created:

• 8 were birds
• 7 were animals
• 8 were flowers/trees
• 4 were patterns/shapes
• 1 was cooking utensils
• 1 was toys
• 1 was "anyone can" figures

C: Types of earrings

• 26 pairs utilized ear wires
• 3 pairs utilized ear threads
• 1 pair utilized ear posts/studs

 Break out of your shell

D: Mirrored pairs

• i5 pairs were roughly mirror images between each earrings
• 15 pairs were not intended to be mirror/matching earrings but each one with it's own character!

 My achievements from the challenge:

1. created 30 pairs of earrings in 2 months
2. created 2 new series of earrings - a) dangly leg animals and b) hand colored anodized earrings
3. initiated another caption competition from my dangly leg birds
4. tried a new media - coloring anodized aluminum
5. tried a new media - polymer clay
6. initiated a poll on my blog which got lots of votes for the next species of choice for a dangly leg animal.  The octopus was selected and they ended up being Nate and Kate, my #30 pair of earrings.
7. Saw lots of other great earrings through other members of the group
8. Got to know the work of some new jewelry artists who were also in the challenge

Flowers feed the soul

My favorite of all the 30 I made are Humphrey and Trisha - and I wear them a lot. Next favorite are Nate and Kate.

Humphrey and Trisha Lovebirds

If I did it again, I think I'd work on trying more styles of earrings, using less ear wires!

The whole challenge idea was Vicki Hallmark's with some encouragement from a few of us.  So thanks Vicki. As you can tell - I got a lot from it and loved it!

So do you have a favorite of the 30 pairs?

I start a new challenge today too....a very different one......but more of that later!