DIY button stud earrings

Since having the twins, my dangly earrings have been relegated to the jewellery box (the twins do like to pull on them!) and I have mostly been wearing studs. I’ve got a few pairs of stud earrings, but it’s always nice to have more to choose from, so I thought I’d expand my collection by making some button stud earrings.

I’m not sure where I got the idea of glueing buttons to earring posts to make earrings from, but it’s not exactly ground-breaking! You literally just glue the two pieces together. This is one of the quickest crafts I think I have ever done.

I had fun picking buttons from one of the button shops in Sham Shui Po (the main craft district in Hong Kong) – I chose buttons that were quite small since I wasn’t looking to make statement earrings, just pretty studs. I purchased my silver plated ear posts from International Craft, where I buy a lot of my jewellery supplies. I forgot to buy butterfly backs when I bought the ear posts (doh!) so I’m using some clear plastic stoppers that I already had.

To make the earrings, I started by cutting off the shanks on the shank buttons (some of the ones I picked had them, some didn’t) using old jewellery cutters. Then, I sanded down the remains of the shanks to get the back of the button as flat as possible.

To glue the buttons to the ear posts I used E6000 glue, as I’ve heard it’s pretty good. I’m not very good at glueing things together, so I wanted to give these earrings the best chance I could of actually staying together. So I sanded the back of the button and the pad of the ear post a little to make the surface more rough, and wiped both parts with nail varnish remover (I’ve heard it removes grease). I then just glued the two together and left them for a day or so, and there you have it, button earrings!

The buttons below had shanks so you can’t actually tell that they are buttons, they just look like normal earrings. Those of you who regularly read my blog will not be surprised to see some mint green earrings here – I just love the colour so much!

These dark blue buttons look a bit iridescent in some lights (you can see it a bit in the top photo), but unfortunately most of the time they just look almost black. Still, these earrings will go well with lots of different colour outfits!

I think the navy blue and white earrings are my favourite. It’s more interesting when you can tell they are actually buttons! I don’t think I’ll wear the bright pink earrings – they’re a bit too bright! But I thought the buttons were quite fun. I think I’ll give them to someone who will appreciate them more!