I still own far more earrings than I routinely wear, but I've been getting better this past two years to wear earrings every day. When I was working at Dreaded CorpJob, choosing my earrings for the day was one of my happier moments. But now even though I work from home, and to some this would be an invitation to wear PJs and no makeup or jewelry, I still wear makeup every day, and I still wear earrings every day. I have a few pairs of hypoallergenic studs that I'll wear once or twice a week, to give my ears a break from the pull and drag of larger dangles or the irritation of some of the cheaper hooks. But after that, I go straight back to my showy, dangly costume jewelry.

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The earrings in the first picture are one of my surviving pairs of earrings from the 80s, and one of the more recent kinda-sorta-non-costume jewelry purchases. The first pair would be ideal if the curved bits were not curved the same direction, so that when I wore them, they'd kind of frame my face. They don't…but the combination of a curved sickle-thing, a long bit of chain, and the fake pearl caught my eye and held through several rounds of purging. They're a pair that I still reach for and wear.

The hematite drops are part of a matched set (the earrings, and a hematite-bead necklace) that I got when visiting friends in Victoria about ten years ago. The second photo shows the hematite drops in closeup.

The third photo is more of the combination of metals, and the arcs/geometric shapes that I seem to gravitate toward. I have two pairs of these. I've seen others hand-make something similar, but they're curved wire, not these flattened-at-the-ends metal pieces. I like this look a bit better!

The fourth earrings are by Jody Coyote. I saw them one year in Macy's shortly after moving up here to Washington state, and bought this pair. Shortly thereafter I went back and bought another pair. And another. And another. Always when they were on sale, because while I like Jody Coyote's mix of colored/acid-etched metals and curved wires, I don't love paying USD$50+ for a pair of those earrings.

The fifth picture is a fairly straightforward metal-mesh angled piece. In the 1980s, this metal-mesh stuff was everywhere: accents on clothing, in jewelry, on shoes and handbags… It seemd as if someone finally figured out how to make this flexible, durable, and inexpensive and was just so very proud of themselves that they showed it off to everyone…who promptly put it All Over Everything.The original gold-colored squares that I bought in the mid-80s are long gone, but this set - one black, one dark grey, one silver - I found in 2012 or 2013.

Six and seven are a pair of longer dangles, again cheap costume jewelry (Icing, I think), again the mix of chain and geometrics/twists. There is a third dangle that's just a longer piece of chain. I have one of these in silver(oid) and one in gold(ish).

The eighth photo…normally I stick with longer shapes - lozenges, ovals, or rectangles - since round earrings don't really flatter my face shape. These are really lovely, though. They're on the larger size from what I'd normally pick out, but I love the dichroic glass squares in the center! They can look orangeish or pinkish, at certain angles.

I have a few sterling-silver earrings, but I've learned about myself that I'm lazy as hell and don't want to deal with polishing the silver when it gets tarnished. The overwhelming bulk of my collection is super-inexpensive costume jewelry, and I'm not sure that I see that changing much. I was appalled to find some earrings on Polyvore tagged as being over $200…and, hand to god, I'd paid $5 for almost the exact same pair of earrings from Icing. There were no jewels or jewel-like things anywhere on these. They weren't gold or gold-plated, either. They were that blackish metal - small metal star cutouts at the ends of blackish-metal rods of varying lengths. I could NOT figure out what would make these sell at over $50, let alone $200!

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