Tacky costume jewellery suddenly becomes cool when you make it yourself.
Step 1Sources for materials
Small crystals (lead glass) or plastic "rhinestones" with flat backs can be purchased at craft stores. These are 2mm in diameter - I discovered later that I shoud have gotten bigger crystals, or smaller magnets in order for them to cover the magnets completely, but the earrings look all right as is. The magnets are neodymium discs 1/8" diameter by 1/32" thickness (3.2mm by 0.8mm), from kjmagnetics.com - very cheap, $2.00 for 25. Superglue...buy anywhere for under a dollar.
Tools: A pair of tweezers or forceps for picking up the crystals (if you can find plastic ones, these would be better than metal), and a toothpick for repositioning.
(By the way, I wrote this like years ago. Recently prices of rare earth metals have gone up a lot, so that may be one reason why they're more expensive.)
It's not the gold that makes those "medical magnets" expensive, it's vendors who know their customers are desperate enough that they'll pay anything without asking questions.