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...

The sparkle never dims

A lovely customer of mine has been cleaning out her mom's basement, discovering some beautiful vintage jewelry and clothing that belonged to her aunt and other family members. She passed along a number of the pieces to me, saying, "Have fun and see what you can make out of these for me."

Seriously. Can you believe the luck?

It's like the Bead Fairy opened up her sack and said, "would you like some free goodies to play with?"

Um, yes, please.

Among the goodies was a set of star-shaped buttons from an old cardigan, and a rhinestone necklace that was beautifully retro but not her taste. Here's what I had to work with:

and

She requested a bracelet from the buttons, and gave me free reign to make anything I could figure out from the necklace. The buttons turned out to be a real challenge, since they were slightly domed with a concave back, and were quite heavy for their size. The trick became finding other beads that would snug up to the shank of the button, while allowing for the curvature of the button's body and supporting the weight enough to prevent the buttons from flopping around.

After a few (okay, five or six) false starts with other designs, I finally settled on some black faceted Czech glass beads in a multi-strand weave. I left the construction of the clasp ends of the bracelet flexible enough to allow me to adjust the finished piece to the customer's wrist. Here's the final product:


The necklace had so many fun components to use. I used the bow as an asymmetrical bit of sparkle in a necklace of faceted, rutilated quartz beads. And forgot to take a picture of it (FAIL). But here is a pair of clip-on earrings from other part of the necklace:

They have the same faceted Czech glass as the button bracelet, so she can wear them with the bracelet or the necklace if she wants.

Big, big, sparkly fun! Next time I'll have some jewelry with more than just silver and black, I promise.

And I've encouraged my customer to go treasure hunting in that basement again soon!

Treasure Hunting and Upcycling

One of my favorite recently-heard terms in the beading world is "upcycling" -- that is, recycling and reusing old jewelry bits and other fabulous stuff that can have a new life in wearable art. I really love the implication that you're not only giving something new life, but raising it to a new level. It's something I've dabbled a bit with in the past, but was itching to jump in on the action again.

So yesterday when I found myself with a little free time (okay, I should have done a few loads of laundry, but you understand) I went to a local antique mall and treasure hunted. There was some truly fabulous eye candy there, including several cases chock full of beautiful old rhinestone jewelry just screaming my name. I tried not to embarass myself by giggling like a kid in a candy shop, drooling excessively over the gorgeousness, or smacking my head into the glass trying to get a closer look. If only I had unlimited funds to answer the call....

But I did find some fun things that I can't wait to work into new pieces --

-- great leaf-shaped earrings with rhinestones and faux pearls, some rocking huge pierced silver earrings (nearly 2" in diameter and 3/4" high. Seriously, the woman who wore these originally must have been able to pick up radio signals from space with these babies!), and a lovely Victorian style silver, marcasite and black crystal necklace that was a steal at only $10. (I know! I was amazed, too!)

They'll probably have to live with me a while until they tell me exactly what they want to be in their next life, but rest assured that they'll show up here after their upcycling!