A Necklace Fit For a Mermaid: the 'Caribbean Sea' Necklace Gets an Update

I wear my handmade jewelry fairly regularly. But, sometimes I do find that certain pieces receive less love than others, or become forgotten altogether. When that happens, I usually either take the old piece apart to create new jewelry, or try to revamp it somehow to make it more appealing to my current style. That was the case with the necklace above!

 

If you've followed this blog for awhile you might remember my 'Caribbean Sea' Necklace (pictured above) from the spring of 2015. I created this necklace when I had just started experimenting with wire-wrapped focal elements, and while I did still wear it occasionally, I knew that my jewelry design style has evolved in a slightly more detail-oriented direction since then. It was a prime candidate for a revival!

I knew I wanted to embellish the wire focal frames, and I wanted more depth of color. Adding in some purples fit right into the ocean-theme that had inspired the original necklace, and I also decided to add some iridescent beads and some tiny sparkling crystals to give it a slightly glam feeling. With so many layers of beads and chain I knew it would either have to go the gaudy or glam route. I tried to go more for glam, but I suppose that's in the eye of the beholder!

I also realized as I was revamping this necklace that the new color scheme fit perfectly with Halcraft's August Pretty Palettes Challenge. While the sea-theme is a little far from the challenge's blueberry-inspired theme, at least both took their cues from nature, right?

 

If you compare the updated necklace (directly above) with the original necklace (the second photo shown in this post) you can see there are two new strands of purple beads--the top strand, which is a series of purple faceted amethyst beads interchanged with crystal-embellished handmade copper wire chainlinks, and the bottom strand of purple quartzite beads, which hangs just above the silver wire focal elements. The wire focal elements have been embellished with a slew of tiny beads in shades of purple (amethyst), blue (aventurine), turquoise (agate), and green (aventurine), as well as some lustrous, iridescent coated faceted round beads and some smaller crystals. All of the beads are Halcraft beads from Michaels, except for the faceted amethyst and turquoise agate (Hobby Lobby) and the glass pearls (from Michaels, but not Halcraft).

All-in-all I'm pretty happy with how this update turned out. It's a bit bulkier than the original version, and while I can definitely tell I'm wearing a necklace when I have it on, it certainly doesn't feel heavy. The color palette is so much more well rounded, and the small bits of sparkle and luster really make it feel more glamorous...it feels more reminiscent of a mermaid to me now, then simply a Caribbean sea!

What do you think of this color palette? Should I add more some more sparkle? I'd love to know your thoughts!

Upcyling and Repurposing: Silver Boho Fringe Necklace

Currently my husband and I are getting ready to move from small town, New Mexico to big city, California. We are supposed to be moving in three weeks. This of course means a lot of packing...which, since I'm a neat freak and often a minimalist, means a lot of sorting and purging as said packing takes place.

The one area where I do tend to 'hoard' things is in my jewelry studio. I have old beads from 5 years ago and unused findings and unfinished jewelry pieces and leftover extra wire elements up to my ears. I always think, 'Of course I can use this in another (future) piece!' and can't bring myself to get rid of these things which are still totally viable jewelry elements. So as I've been cleaning out and purging I've come across some of these unused hoarded bits and the wheels in my head have been turning and turning.

Last night I sat down and pulled a few of these elements together to create a fun Silver Boho Fringe Necklace, and I totally love it. It's so fun, and totally trendy with current bohemian styles!

The fringed wire elements are simple hammered frames I originally created for a totally different necklace, then didn't like how it came together. To add the fringe I simply wire-wrapped some sturdy silver chain along the hammered wire frames, then added handmade silver dangles (silver bugle beads strung on silver ball head pins with a wrapped loop)--which were originally created for and then not used with my Bombay Dreaming necklace earlier this spring!--to each chain link.

I hung these fringed wire frames from another leftover short length of silver chain--too short to be used for a necklace of its own--and added some large bead dangles (leftover from an old charm necklace) around and between the frames for embellishment.

I then completed the necklace by attaching some other smaller bits of silver chain (connected together to create longer lengths by small, decorative silver beads with wrapped loops on either end) to each side, and a simple lobster clasp at the back.

To add a bit of pizzazz to the necklace I used small jump rings to attach some pretty, iridescent AB coated rhinestone cup chain all along the top length of chain above the fringed wire frames. This really makes the necklace unique, and I love the iridescent sparkle!

This necklace is just perfect for adding a bit of late summer/autumn flare to those breezy boho styles that are everywhere right now, and I know it'll fit in just perfectly in sunny southern California! Not bad for a hodgepodge necklace made from leftover odds and ends.

Do you save old jewelry bits for repurposing? Have you ever created jewelry from leftover beads and findings? Do you enjoy the current boho trend? I'd love to know.

Sarah


Linking up with:

Worthwhile Wednesday at Crafty Allie
Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims
Idea Box - Thursday Link Party at Mila's Little Things
Friday Finds at Minted Strawberry
Link Party Palooza at Tatertots and Jello
The Creative Corner at Curly Crafty Mom
Fabulous Party at Lou Lou Girls
Show and Tell Link Party at Flamingo Toes

Jewelry Upcycle: Walmart Clearance Necklace to Forever 21 Raga Necklace Knockoff

Sometimes when I'm looking for new jewelry-making inspiration I like to browse stores online to look at current jewelry trends, styles, and color pairings. Of course I can't exactly replicate every commercial jewelry technique that catches my eye, but I do find lots of ideas to get my creative brain rolling.

One of the stores I sometimes turn to for jewelry inspiration is Forever 21. Online only, of course, because unfortunately, I  live in the middle of nowhere. No, seriously. My town has a population of maybe 18,000 people. I'm an hour's drive (each way) from the nearest Target, and two hours' drive (each way) to the 'big city' where there's a mall with an actual Forever 21 store. So online viewing is my method of choice. (Which is maybe a good thing, because if I actually walked into a Forever 21 and browsed through their jewelry section I'd probably end up buying. all. the. things.)

Forever 21's Raga Faux Turquoise Statement Necklace

A few weeks ago I was browsing F21 online and came across their Raga Faux Turquoise Statement Necklace. And totally fell in LOVE. But at $68, it was waaaayyyy more than I'd ever spend on a necklace, besides being a lot pricier than what I normally expect from Forever 21 (and I'm not sure why; the stones are not real turquoise and the metal isn't precious...). But anyway, like my World Market Knockoff Necklace I shared last week, I knew I could make a similar version for a lot less moolah using some items I already had in my bead stash.

Seriously, Walmart clearance jewelry is awesome for upcycling. Check it out.

A couple of months back I picked up two of these silver tone necklaces with various sizes of dangling discs from Walmart, on clearance for $3 each. I knew I could use the silver discs in some future jewelry project, and at $3 a pop they were too good a deal to pass up. Along with one of the Walmart necklaces I gathered a few other supplies--some turquoise-colored magnesite beads, 4mm jump rings, and ball head pins, all of which were already in my bead stash. From there it was an easy (and really quick!) project.

I only needed one of the Walmart necklaces to create my F21-inspired necklace. I just detached the outer strand from the store-bought necklace so I could use it to create the scalloped tiers, then played around a little to figure out how I wanted the three tiers to drape and where they should be reattached. Once I was happy with the look, I used 4mm jump rings to reattach the longer chain back to the shorter chain, creating the draped tiers at the same time.

Next I threaded each magnesite bead onto a ball head pin and made a wrapped-loop dangle. I used more 4mm jump rings to attach each dangle to the necklace in a balanced, symmetrical layout. Tip: I used jump rings to attach each dangle rather than wrapping the headpin loops directly onto the chain itself so that I wasn't 'stuck' with the placement...which was good, as I ended up moving the bead dangles around several times before I was happy with the layout. Much easier than wasting a bunch of headpins each time I wanted to change their placement!

I kept the existing lobster clasp and extender chain, and since I had one leftover magnesite bead dangle I attached it to the extender chain for a bit of pretty detail.

Once I had all the bead dangles in place I then took some of the silver discs from higher up the neckline of the top chain and used them to fill in various gaps down in the tiers where there were blank spaces. It took a little shuffling to get the placement of the discs balanced to my overly-perfectionistic liking, but I LOVE how it turned out!

 

This was such an incredibly easy project, and it turned out even better than I'd first envisioned. And I'm loving the fun boho style for summer--and for only $3! I think it evokes such a great, sunny and carefree vibe. I can't wait to pair this with a fun summer dress and some wedge sandals and give it a spin next Sunday at church!

Have you ever upcycled unloved jewelry into something new? Are you digging the boho-inspired styles this summer? I'd love to know.

Sarah

Linking with:

Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest
Friday Finds at Minted Strawberry
Link Party Palooza at I Heart Naptime
Motivational Monday at Curly Crafty Mom
Show and Tell Link Party at Flamingo Toes
Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims 

Jewelry Upcycle: Walmart Clearance to World Market-Inspired Jewelry Set

 

If you've read many of my other jewelry posts, you might have noticed I'm a big fan of tribal-style jewelry. Perhaps influencing my love of tribal jewelry is my life-long love of eastern/ethnic metal jewelry--think Middle Eastern, Turkish, Indian, etc. So it should come as no surprise then that I LOVE World Market, and especially their jewelry. Sadly, their jewelry is usually priced much higher than what I'm willing to pay for trendy jewelry that will likely go out of style after a few more seasons, so I rarely buy jewelry there unless there's a mega sale or I have a really good coupon. Well, sometime last November/December while doing some Christmas shopping I found a fabulous necklace there that was just calling my name...but it was almost $40. 

The World Market necklace I fell in love with. Just look at all those gorgeous
Turkish coin dangles!

That's more than two tanks of gas for my car, folks. Call me cheap, but I'm not willing to spend $40 on a metal statement necklace! I've kept my eye on it ever since, hoping it would go on clearance or something...but no such luck. I even searched bead stores high and low for coin-like beads so I could create my own version of the necklace, but had absolutely no luck finding anything that would work and not cost as much as the original necklace. Then one day I saw some necklaces at Walmart featuring gold and silver coin dangles that were on clearance for $5 each, and the creative gears in my brain started whirling...I hadn't considered a mixed metal version before, but for that clearance price I was willing to rework my vision a little. :)

The clearance Walmart necklace that sparked the idea for my knockoff coin jewelry.

I grabbed up four of the Walmart necklaces, got busy taking them apart, then gathered some silver-tone flower connectors I had in my stash (originally from Hobby Lobby). After playing around with some layouts, here's what I finally decided on:

The entire necklace (with the exclusion of the flower connectors from HL)--and I mean every single jump ring, bead, chain, and the clasp--came from the Walmart clearance jewelry. I didn't have to use any of my own supplies. I used three $5 Walmart necklaces to create my World Market knock-off necklace, so $15 compared to the $37 price tag at World Market! And I didn't even use the thick cable chains that were the bases of the original Walmart necklaces, so I've added several necklace-length cable chains to my supply stash for something else in the future, which is awesome--chain can be expensive!

I decided to add the three beaded strands above the coin dangles because I wanted to add more depth to the necklace and because I wanted to use up as many components from the Walmart necklaces as I could. Since the Walmart components were mostly cheap metal and plastic, I knew I wouldn't use them in any of my future jewelry creations and I figured I might as well try to use as many as possible with this project.

I ended up only using three of the Walmart necklaces for my knock-off necklace, which left one Walmart necklace still unused. As I said above, I knew I wouldn't use the components in any other future jewelry creations, so I wanted to figure out some way to use the rest of the leftovers...which lead to matching earrings and a bracelet. I don't usually make full jewelry sets, but I really like how these turned out.

Unfortunately, the earrings turned out a bit too heavy as the coin dangles are metal and not just coated plastic, so at some point I need to figure out a new design. It took several attempts to come up with this first version that I really liked though, so I'm not in any hurry!

The bracelet was fairly simple to put together--it was really mostly about using up the clear plastic beads. I added some flower connectors at each end to tie the design elements together, and added the two coin dangles I had left near the clasp as a fun aesthetic element.

I've already had the chance to wear this necklace once and I think I like it even better than the World Market version! I mean, gold + silver = goes with anything. And because the three strands of clear beads are all cheap plastic they're super lightweight, so the only weight in the necklace actually comes from the bottom strand with the coin dangles. And while the coin dangles are a little heavy for delicate earlobes, they don't feel heavy around the neck at all.

I'm so happy with how this necklace (and the entire set) turned out. $20 for a statement necklace AND matching earrings AND a matching bracelet?? That's my kind of price.

Are you frugal with your jewelry purchases? Do you like tribal/ethnic jewelry styles? Have you ever checked out Walmart jewelry? I'd love to know.

Sarah

Linking with:

Show and Tell Link Party at Flamingo Toes
Your Whims Wednesday at My Girlish Whims
Friday Finds at Minted Strawberry
Frugal Friday at The Shabby Nest
Link Party Palooza at I Heart Naptime
Motivational Monday at Curly Crafty Mom