Cardboard Earings 1987

This post was inspired by Nicole, my childhood friend in Alaska, that recently asked me about my Cardboard Earing Collection and whether or not I ever wore them in public. Nikki, here is your answer:

I grew up in a small, isolated town in Alaska. There was no mall, no "cool" shops and no fast food. The 80's were all the rage (we were always at least 5 years behind, so the 80's were cool even into the 90's!!) Everything that was cool AT ALL was bought in Anchorage (a 6 hour drive from Valdez) or from catalogs.

When I was in 7th grade (1986-7) I REALLY wanted large, dangly earings, but I couldn't afford them. Nor would my mom have let me wear them, most likely!! I had an earing catalog that showed photos of earings I coveted, IN ACTUAL SIZE!! I spent HOURS pouring over the pages, WISHING for those earings and all the coolness that would come from wearing them.

Ssooooo . . . in my creative attempt to be cool, I carefully cut this exact pair of earings out and Elmer's glued them to lightweight cardboard . . .

(I was going to say I glued them to cereal boxes, but my mom didn’t buy boxed cereal, she only bought the bagged kind from Costco that tasted like catfood and didn’t EVER get soft in milk. But then, who wanted to eat cold cereal anyway, when all we had was POWDERED MILK??!!)

Back to the story . . . then, I hot glued these cardboard creations to cheap earing studs.

I had a whole jewelry box full of these cardboard babies, but I don’t remember wearing them. Except around my bedroom. Like some middle school fantasy dress-up diva. . with big froggy glasses. Oh, I was a weirdo alright, but not weird enough (or confident enough) to wear them out in public. This particular Watermellon Pair was my favorite (and one that Nicole remembers, too!) One thing that made them look fake was that I didn't have any dangly french wire to attach them to, only posts, so they looked a little odd.


I did NOT make a pair that said, "STOP" but I did have a pair that I thought were scandalous. Mine said:

And I thought it would be really "Suggestive" if I ever wore them, so I just dreamed about wearing them and having a boy ask me if my shoulders were really soft. Oooh, the excitement of that question was almost too much for my 7th grade mind. And the boys I dreamed about were Troy Fenner, Matt Kiser and John Vogt, just in case you were wondering, Nicole. They were the boys with the coolest mullets and the combs in their back pockets.

Now that Emma is in Middle School I watch her like a hawk. Mostly, to see if she's as weird as I was and also to see if she likes the "Bad Boys" like I did. I am so afraid, she does share my DNA, you know!! These photos were taken in 1988, when I was in 8th grade. They are of Matt Kiser, Lance Komkoff and John Vogt (Troy Fenner wasn't a guitar player, apparently!) Troy had a locker near mine and it seemed he was always "cleaning" it out (strewing papers all over the hallway!) He really did have the nicest mullet.