Grafting the roses

Clip on earrings are all well and good if you don't have pierced ears, but if you do, then they are not worth wearing. Clip on earrings display their architecture in big, obvious loops that stick out over the bottom of your earlobes. Tacky! In addition, they pinch. Although they usually feel fine when you first put them on, after a few hours, all you'll feel is the pain.

I accidentally bought some clip-on earrings a few weeks ago, and rather than just write off the one dollar loss, I decided to "fix" them. Here's how I did it, in case you ever find yourself in a similar predicament. I expect you could follow the same process, using different findings, if you're a die-hard clip-on wearer who finds herself in possession of some pierced earrings.

1) Remove the clip. 

I tried numerous methods, mostly in the form of brute force and pliers, but those clips wouldn't budge, and I was starting to scrape the black paint off the metal. Finally I lopped them right off at the base using heavy-duty wire cutters.

These earrings fell apart once the backing was off, because the flowers were constructed of two layers held together by a metal post that was part of the clip-on backing. I glued them back together during step two.

2) Glue on a pierced-earring backing. 

You can find these stud backings at pretty much any craft store (I got mine at Jo-Ann Fabrics). I recommend attaching them with epoxy glue—an Unfashionista's second-best friend (best friend is a sewing machine). The nice thing about epoxy is you only mix up what you need as you need it, so it doesn't dry out in the bottle, but I have also had success repairing earrings with Krazy Glue.

 

3) Wait for the glue to dry. 

What? That's it!? It's true! This was one of the simplest Fashion-Fix-Its I've ever done!