There's No Place Like Home

When we switched on the TV, Wednesday night, we came upon final scenes from The Wizard of Oz.  Dorothy closes her eyes and recites, "There's no place like home.  There's no place like home".  Then she awakens in her own bed, surrounded by her loved ones.

As I was making today's earrings, I remembered that phrase - There's no place like home - and decided it was a perfect title.

The house charms came from Inviciti.  I wanted to frame them with some kind link.  I had some sterling silver kite shaped links in mind, that I was going to hammer and patina.  But it turned out the links were smaller than I had remembered them to be.  So I got out a bunch of other links before I found this round pair that were the right size.  But then I realized that the holes at the tops of the houses were itty-bitty.  So next I pulled out all my jump rings and wire to see if I could find something in a small enough gauge to fit through the holes in the charms.  Without going into all the unsuccessful details, suffice it to say that my work table looked like this before I was done with the job!  The earrings are hiding in this mess.  Can you find them?

My husband wandered in when I was in the middle of this disaster.  I had a picture in my mind of what I wanted, but I was having a hard time bringing it to life.  He pointed out that pewter is quite a soft metal and that I maybe able to gently enlarge the hole with a thin drill bit.  I didn't have that thin a bit, but I very, very gently enlarged the hole by twisting the tip of my round nose pliers in the hole at the top of the house charms.  It only took the tiniest bit of pressure to enlarge the hole enough to slip a jump ring into it.  The rest of the project came together effortlessly.

I rather enjoy the problem solving that is sometimes required in order to make the vision in my head come true.  Admittedly, at times, that process can tip over into frustration.  But in this case I had fun and am quite pleased with the result.  The "There's No Place Like Home" earrings are available in my shop now.

 There's no place like home.....

Linda Landig Jewelry