Custom Earring Alteration

Last Friday, my mother-in-law came to me with a question: could I convert a pair of clip-on earrings to use French wires instead?  The earrings themselves used to belong to her mother, she explained, and she would love to wear them but the clips hurt her ears.


For the record, I had never done such a conversion before.  Still, I told her that I would do what I could.  I love a challenge, after all.


These are the earrings:

Front view

Back view

I decided that, instead of trying to pry off the backs, I would utilize the clips themselves.  With a half hour, some beading wire, and a pair of French hooks, this is what I came up with:

How did I do it?  Here is the back:

This is what the back shows: I wrapped the wire through the hole on the clip, and then anchored it by wrapping it once around the top rhinestone.  Then, I simply did standard wire-wrapping to make the loop for the earwires, finishing it off by wrapping it around itself.


I am very pleased with the final product, especially since nothing I did harmed the original earring.  Everything is reversible, so if my mother-in-law decides that the earwires don't work for her, I can revert them to their original form.


One last look...

Aren't they just lovely?