Knockoff Earrings for Less!

Have you ever shopped at Shopko? I will admit, when I first checked the store out, I thought it was a little weird. To me, it feels like a mix between a Kmart and a Big Lots... they've got all you'd need, but it's often at a premium for sometimes not-so-great quality, unless you're shopping the ad or clearance. It's a weird little mix of a store but I secretly think it's pretty fun to shop the clearance, because when they go to clearance, they really go to clearance.

Enter these earrings:

It's funny, because in this picture, they don't look so bad - I like that color yellow. But in reality, the jewel was NEON yellow, not Big Bird yellow. Neon yellow isn't really my speed anymore... but I had seen these earrings on the Young House Love blog before (they're apparently a Sherry favorite):

Kendra Scott Jewelry - Danielle Earrings in Green - $60.00

and couldn't help but notice how these were almost exactly the same earring shape and size... but not with a $60.00 price tag:

...but with a $1.40 price tag. I can make a $1.40 work. Here's what the back looked like... they actually look and feel like a high quality earring (and you can see they are more neon in this picture):

I knocked out the jewel part...

which was easy to do... it was only being held in two spots on the sides. Easy!

I grabbed my Rust-oleum Oil Rubbed Bronze spray paint, and gave the jewels two light coats so they wouldn't drip.

Ironically, used the Shopko ad to catch the paint...

Looking good! I had to make sure to let them dry for a while as plastic doesn't absorb the paint at all.

I used hot glue to put the jewel back in, but will use Krazy Glue gel formula to really secure the jewel when I get some more :)

Pushed the jewel back in with a hint of glue, and they came out gorgeous! Much more my "speed", and a pretty color for fall! They remind me of these ones by Kendra Scott as well!

Kendra Scott Jewelry - Danielle in Black - $60.00

These are a great testament to always keep an open mind when shopping - a lot of things can be changed to fit your taste! Thanks for reading!

An interesting week or two here on the blog...

Hi all!

So I thought I would take a second to highlight some of the neat things (well, I think they're neat) happening here on the blog and around the blog-o-sphere.

First, I submitted my Sunny-Side Up Casserole to Kelly at View Along The Way's linky party... and wasn't prepared for the traffic explosion that I received from linking up. All I have to say is WOW. And thank you to all of those coming in to view the recipe. It's by far my most popular post (even though I don't have a whole lot of them... yet!) and I have View Along the Way and Pinterest and "viewers like you" (name that reference!) to thank for it. So thank you and I hope you enjoy the recipe.

Then this happened.

I was then featured on her recipe recap and ho. my. goodness. That was a pretty exciting moment for me to be reading her post in my little Google Reader and there I am! So wow! Thank you again. As of this moment it has 185 views which is awesome to me! Yummy breakfast for everyone!

Then I commented on a post on Young House Love... and got a response from John himself. Of course, I was making an Anchorman reference (if you know me, you know that this is not that surprising).

(Minor fan-girl for YHL moment.... haha)

And THEN... this happened.

Holy shizzle. That's pretty exciting for me, I've only been blogging since October so to see this number is mind-boggling for me. I can't imagine what some of the "bigger blogs" have in readership numbers. (And yes, I have my own pageviews turned off, otherwise that number would be a lot higher. lol!)

So thank you to all my readers and all my purchasers in my Etsy shop. You make this whole gig pretty fun! See you later on this week with more crafts and recipes!