Merry Christmas Earrings!

Twas that time of year again where I  dusted off the old Christmas earrings to wear sporadically throughout the Christmas season! Before they hit the earring stand again to gather another years worth of dust I thought it would be an ideal time to photog them :)

First up my happy little Christmas trees! 

I'm not sure where I got these little guys from but I've had them for a few years. They have a switch on the back that makes them flash. Sadly only one flashes now but they're still heaps of fun even when it's not night time!)

Next on the Christmas earring list are my Santa Troll Doll earrings! I found these at a market somewhere. They look a little second hand but I knew I had to give them a new home as soon as I saw them :) 

Last but not least are my Christmas penguins! They were a Christmas gift from my Mum a couple Christmases ago. I try not to wear them on hot days because our Christmas climate is unfair on poor little penguins! Which I think  is a wise decision because the one on the right looks like it wants to hit you in the face with it's candy cane!

Earring Trivia: I actually  don't own a lot of Christmas earrings in the scheme of things! Should really do something about that...

Bruce Lee Earrings

More on the obscure side of my collection are my Bruce Lee earrings! I've had them for a little while & proud to say I made them myself! And by 'made them myself' I mean I bought a pair of those dangly charms you get for phones  & converted them into earrings :) I quite enjoy Bruce Lee films so they were a welcome edition to my collection.
I photographed them against a picture from an old Bruce Lee calendar I had.

The phone charms are a bit cheaply made & look a bit goofy haha! But I like them just fine!

 Oh & if anyone ever happens across Jackie Chan earrings send me a link! Love a bit of the Chan Man also :)   

Earring Trivia: Appropriately, I purchased the Bruce Lee charms from China Town in Melbourne.

Mice & Cheese Earrings

Time for an earrings double combo! Mouse & Cheese :) This duo come from two separate places but they are perfect together.

First up the Mice. They come from Amsterdam! I was over there for New Years with a good friends of mine, and one of the days we were there we went for a bit of a wonder & stumbled on an interesting shop (pictured).  I found the mice earrings & they had to come with me :)

The cheese earrings were another recent etsy purchase. They are my second purchase from Monica  (owner of etsy shop Mother May I &  My Little Lunch Box). I seem to have a thing for food earrings & these cheese earrings are nothing short of awesome! (You may remember my first purchase from Monica.. the Severed Finger Earrings!)


When it came to photogging these earrings for my collection I had to combine the two! I had one perfect idea in mind but had a bit of trouble sourcing a new wooden mousetrap (all the others I found were those plastic ones.) 

I knew my parents had a few, so when I visited last I found one & took a few photos. (Sorry Mum! I know you said it was gross & not to use it because it was used for real mice - but I couldn't find any others & I sterilized the earrings afterwards!)

Earring Trivia: I like the word 'Cheese' more than I like Cheese & can say it in a few different languages.

P.S here is the alternate ending from that photo shoot..

Shoe Story

The strangest thing happened on the weekend. Soon after it happened I recreated the incident & photographed it to better illustrate the the story for your amusement as well as my own :) Soooooo here it is: 

I was visiting my parentals on the weekend & was about to go somewhere with my dad in the car, so I decided to put my shoes on. As soon as I did, I noticed that something was in one of them. I didn't want to keep my Dad waiting so I thought 'I'll deal with that later'. 

When I got out of the car & started walking the thing in my shoe started to hurt my foot! I stopped to take my shoe off to see what it was (hoping it wasn't some kind of spider!) Low & behold my Bat Earring was hanging from my sock!! 

Hahah I wasn't expecting that at all! I had to laugh! :) The hook bit was in my sock & it was hanging there like it was flying!

Earring Trivia: If you look closely you'll see my awesome Beavis & Butthead shoelaces! They were one of the first things I bought online (quite a few years ago!) A little bit worse for wear now but here is a picture of them in their prime.

Coffin Earrings

Time for another favorite of mine! The Coffin earrings :)

These were a gift from a cool old workmate  (old as in 'we worked together a couple years ago' not old as in 'she is old'). This lovely person is none other than Ali! She is even making her own earrings these days (which I hope to own a pair of one day!) They are pretty cool & can find them here along with a few other bits & pieces. 

This photograph was taken in my backyard & it didn't take too many shots to get what I was after. I made the little cross out of sticks & glued it together with craft glue. I tried a couple different places and this was the last of them. 

I was pretty much on my hands & knees taking it so I could get the angle & depth of field how I had it in my head. To finish it off I just greyscaled the image & played with the contrast a little to make it look more spooky.

They've gotten a lot more wear than some of my other earrings because I love them so much! Thanks Ali!! :D

Earring Trivia: They came attached to a playing card that I still have  - The Ace of Diamonds. 

Decisions! The current collection.

Behold! The most recent photo of my earring collection! Taken by me just now. Like 10 mins ago. 

This is what I face each and every morning. And I can tell you that it's a tough decision! As previously stated, what I wear often comes down to what I'm wearing, what season it is or my current mental state. 

And this is not all of them! There are a few more that I currently don't have room for!! Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have a new frame for my expanding collection. The ones pictured are altered picture frames that were made by my Dad (he is a cleaver man!)  

If you look closely their is a bit of order to this madness! All the studs are towards the top & everything is arranged in groups. 
Also it kinda turned out that most of the 'good' earrings are on the right and most of the 'evil' earrings are on the left. It may not surprise you to learn that I tend to wear more of the earrings on the left haha! 

The plan is to photograph most of these & tell you a bit about each of them on here :)  Looks like I'm in it for the long haul! 

Earring Trivia: There are 3 new pairs in this picture that I acquired this weekend! Black skulls & my initials. But more on them later.. 

Severed Fingers

Well.. as you can see, these earrings are severed fingers! Hooray! These were one of my original etsy finds that I just had to own! 

They come from one very talented Monica  (owner of etsy shop Mother May I & more recently My Little Lunch Box). When I messaged her the photo I found out she moulded the earrings on her 7 year old daughters pinky finger!

 'I showed my 7 year old daughter the pic you took. ..she was highly grossed out but laughs and gets a kick out of it.. as do i. LOL!'

This is not the first & won't be the last pair of earrings from Monica! (I have to say this is the most extreme pair that I've seen in her shop, most of the others are food related & look delicious! Check them out here.) They are amazing!

For this particular photo I had a couple of ideas in mind. But the first thing to do was to mix up some fake blood! I have an awesome recipe that I always use but decided to wing it with what was in the pantry.  I used BBQ sauce, golden syrup, corn flour, red food dye & a tiny bit of blue food dye. Unlike my usual recipe this one stained my hand red but I was super happy with the result! 

The original plan was to include my hand & make it look like I was cutting off my finger. But I was loosing daylight & being the hand model as well as the photographer was proving difficult! (It's not an easy hand pose.) And I was making a mess! So I just went with the finger on the chopping board. (I gave the photo a little help in photoshop. Just to make the blood stand out a little more.. in case you couldn't see it..) 

I had WAAAAYYY too much fun during this shoot :) I don't wear these a whole lot because they tend to freak people out..


Earring Trivia: One of my housemates walked into the kitchen while I was cleaning up the blood afterwards haha! I had some splaining to do.. I think I started with "It's okay It's not my blood.." 

Fishbowl Earrings

More old faithfuls favorites! These awesome fishbowl earrings were the second half of a gift from my friend Amy!  (The other half being my popcorn earrings.)

The photos for this one are still fresh off the camera! I got the inspiration for the shot when I wore my Cat in the Hat t-shirt to work on Friday. I'd re-watched the movie recently (haha love it!) and it hit me while I was deciding on which pair would accompany me for the day. (Yes I know there is only one fish in the movie/book but I think they compliment each other quite well.)

Also this photo is straight off the camera with no editing. (I try & edit photos as little as possible.. It's a bit like my preference for Special effects over CGI.) The sun decided to shine a little this afternoon so I took advantage of the good lighting :)

Earring trivia: I hadn't noticed until I took the photo today, but it looks like the fish up the front has been attacked by a Zombie fish (braaaaiiinnnss)! It's pretty much worn off a little like that on both of them.  Possibly because I've worn them quite a bit!

Gummy Bears

Some more from the early days! If I remember correctly these little guys were all attached to a bracelet & I made them into earrings. I used to wear them quite a bit as they are easy to mix & match to whatever it is I'm wearing for the day.

Sadly one of them is no longer with us.
I wore them to a folk music festival (those of you who know me well - this is a strange place for me to be) & forgot to wear the plastic backings (again with the backings! IMPORTANT!). When I noticed I'd lost one of them I got down on my hands & knees hoping with a bit of luck I'd find them in the dirt & straw. A lady approached me and then this happened..

Lady "Oh have you lost something?"

Me "Yes! One of my earrings!"

Lady starts to help look "Oh what's it look like? Is it gold? Or silver?"

Me "It's a gummy bear! Purple.."

Lady "Ohhh..."  proceeds to stop looking and walks away!!

The original photo for this is also trapped on a broken hard drive which I tired to get fixed ages ago with no luck.
Maybe they are bad luck gummy bears??!! Who knows?! They are pretty awesome tho :)

Earring Trivia: What I'm wearing, how I'm feeling, what season it is or what I have to face for the day are  factors on what earrings I'll wear! If my t-shirt has blue in it, I'll probably pick earrings that are blue. If I need a bit of courage I'll wear my lions. Or if I need ideas it's light bulbs all the way..

SHARRRKKS!!

These little guys are a recent addition and they are AWESOME!
As soon as I saw them I knew they had to become part of my collection!! I tried to resist but not very hard haha! 

They came from a shop called 'Chainsaw Mouth' on Etsy! (If you're not familuar with Etsy its pretty much an online market for handmade & vintage goods. Total gold mind for novelty earrings!) The shop owner was particularly awesome & even sent through a bunch of extra extra goodies! (You can also find them on facebook.)

When I set out to photograph this image I had no idea where to start! So I tried a bunch of different things. Most of which failed! Here are some of the more spectacular failures:

Yeah I put a shark in the sink with the water running! And in a Glass! And posed it with my rubber chicken earring! I just go with whatever idea comes to me until something works. (And this is only a handful of the ideas that came to me!) 

Eventually I settled on my skull glass & decided to have a bit of fun with food dye & water. I set my camera up on a tripod,  ripped out a blank piece of paper from an old journal, grabbed my camera remote & hoped to fluke a good photo! 

After 2 passes at simultaneously dripping red food dye into a skull glass & snapping photos I got the shot I was after & a sequence of cool photos from the food dye!

Afternoon well spent! These are fun to wear :)

Earring trivia: I took 154 photos trying to document my shark earrings!

Bat Earrings

Another favorite pair of mine from the early days! I used to wear them quite often before my collection expanded. They are from a clothing store called Jay Jays & I think there was a necklace with the bats as well.. But I'm just all about the earrings! I'm not sure why I love them so much but I do! 

I nearly lost one of them at work once! But luckily I spotted it not far from my chair a few hours later. It was almost a tragedy! I now very rarely wear earrings without the clear plastic backings on them for this reason. 

The photo behind this one pretty much came from spontaneously searching around my room for things that would match the bats! The tree is a toy from an opp shop lucky dip. It's propped up on a giant plastic paperweight peg that my friend Lisa gave me & the background is a CD cover from a German power metal band Grave Digger. That pretty much sums it up!



Earring trivia: The CD cover used in this is from the band 'Grave Digger'. The CD itself is called 'The Grave Digger' & it has a track on it 'The Grave Digger'

Popcorn Earrings

This lovely pair of earrings was a gift from a good friend of mine Amy! They are one of the earlier pairs I received that led me down the path of crazy earrings collecting. Very much a favorite of mine as well! (Even though I do have lots of favorites..)

These do get a semi regular wearing, most often when I go see a movie! They are the most logical & topical choice don't you think? 

I wore them when I saw  Piranha 3D as pictured! When I got home from the movie the idea to creatively photograph them like that sorta just happened. So I ran with it & ended up with this picture! It's also one of my favorite pictures from my collection. 

Earring trivia: The last movie we saw together was 'The Dark Knight Rises'

Boney T

This is possibly one of the coolest things I own! Theodore aka "Boney T" is a 4th Quality Anatomical skeleton from Hagerstown MD USA. He's pretty heavy but loads of fun to play with, dress up & scare the crap out of people! (One time I accidentally left him sitting in the lounge when someone came around to check the smoke detectors.. oops!)

My cat Deano also loves Boney T! I often find him sitting in Boneys lap or chewing on his toes.. (strange cat..) 

I love skeletons (how could you not? Just look at his smile!) so it seemed like a logical & normal thing for me to acquire one of my own (besides the one I already have haha!) 

Also every year Bones helps me wish my friends happy birthday with a personalized message. This normally involves a photo shoot with a wig, fire & candles! It's getting more complex each year but it's heaps of fun!

Getting Boney T was the one of the best decisions ever! Thank you internets for making it possible.

Boney T Trivia: He has his own facebook page that you can find here.

Lets start at the beginning..

I always said 'I would never get my ears pierced until I found cool enough earrings'. I'd made it into my 20's without ever feeling the need to hang things from my ears. Then, thanks to a uni friend of mine Emma Chandler, I received my first pair of novelty earrings (pictured below) that I deemed cool enough to  justified getting my ears pierced. 


I still remember the day! I got them both done at once because I hate needles & decided to just get it over with! They said it would 'just feel like a bee sting'. Throughout my childhood (back when I actually used to spend time out in the sun) I got stung by many bees. And that was not like bees at all! The worst part however was having the boring earrings in for a while before I could wear my new awesome ones! 

Little did I know back then that this would spark an obsession that has only escalated over the years! I've gone from occasionally finding the odd pair of earrings here & there to actively seeking out the most bizarre & ridiculous I can get my hands on. I have also received many a pair from awesome people along the way  - spurring on this obsession even more! 

Over the past few years I randomly began photographing my collection for no particular reason other than to share with my friends on facebook.  However recently I've started to compile the images of my beloved collection here because I wanted to share my collection with the internets. 

Now I feel the need to go beyond just sharing photos and that brings us here (with quite a bit of encouragement from a few friends! Cheers guys!)  Look at this if you will as a companion piece & backstory behind the earrings. I'll also include some of the cool stuff I own :) because it's cool stuff! (That way if something ever happens to any of it I can always look back on here & remember all the fun times we had.)

So welcome to my little obscure corner of the internets! I hope you enjoy my collection as much as I do!
Earring trivia: These little guys are named Rufus & Otis after characters from a Rob Zombie move!