Custom Upcycle Reveal

A couple of weeks ago, one of my customers gave me the opportunity to revamp a necklace she inherited from her aunt, into a new piece for her to wear at her son's wedding.

Inherited heirloom?  Son's wedding?  Pictures that will last forever in the family?  No pressure, right?  (insert panicked scream here...)

So after a lot of thought and more than a few nerves when I first cut off the clasp from the rhinestone chain, here's the final product.

The original rhinestone necklace was too short for the neckline of her dress, so I added some chain in the back for length.  Her dress has a gauzy jacket with some beading, so I had to make something that wouldn't compete with the jacket, but wouldn't disappear into blah if she took the jacket off at the reception.  So for that extra little "sumpin sumpin", I added a bracelet of faux pearls and faceted Czech glass that she also had in her jewelry box (how lucky a match was that?!?)

There was a technical challenge in figuring out how to attach the rhinestone chain to the extra chain without soldering (we'll have a little chat someday about the wisdom of trusting me with open flame), but a little wire wrapping took care of it:

And as a bonus, she asked me to try to convert a headband into a bracelet.  My brain went on fritz and I forgot to take a picture of the headband before I performed surgery on it to remove the beaded motif, but imagine this on a skinny black headband:

A little chain, a little thread, and voila! 

I hope my customer is pleased with the final product!  Maybe she'll save me a piece of wedding cake...