If you’re like me, you probably have a box, drawer, or tangled mess of jewelry that you just don’t wear anymore. I’ll be the first to admit that I have a pile of bracelets and necklaces collecting dust that I can’t bring myself to give away – but what purpose do they serve hiding in a drawer?
I’ve been inspired lately to make new things out of the items we already own (like my brown paper wrappings this year – call it Christmas on a budget). After reading several necklace tutorials by Bromeliad, I was finally convinced to do something with my old jewelry. So without further ado, here is a necklace I created yesterday out of three old necklaces, embroidery thread, and an old broach!
Here’s how I did it.
Keeping in mind what I was planning to wear that day, I selected a few old necklaces that fit the general color scheme of my outfit and worked together well. (You could alternatively make one of these necklaces and build an outfit around it.)
Here’s an example of one of the necklaces I found myself shoving to the back of my jewelry drawer over and over.
These are the three I ended up choosing. The first was a gift from my mom from one of her summer trips, the second was something I picked up off the sale rack at one of those mall jewelry stores, and the third was a Christmas gift from an aunt years ago.
Next I looked around my craft stash for a coordinating piece of ribbon, rope, or any other kind of tie-able material.
I was looking for ribbon but came up with this gray embroidery thread.
I doubled up a length of embroidery thread and threaded it through the clasps at one end of all three necklaces.
From there I performed a very technical step called fiddling.
I brought the other end of the embroidery thread around behind my neck and fiddled around with the thread and necklaces until everything was the right length and height and laid correctly. Then I tied off each necklace to the other end of the thread.
This side of the necklace was kind of messy, so I added a vintage broach to cover up the mess.
Approach the Broach, as my husband likes to say.
With that, the necklace was done! It was convenient for me that my shirt kind of covered up the embroidery thread. Had my neck been exposed, I would have looked a lot harder for a prettier ribbon to use.
I’m so happy with how this necklace turned out, and it’s opened up a world of new jewelry combinations to me! I’m thinking this method might be a perfect way to invent a new necklace for Christmas dinner…
Would you try making one of these necklaces for yourself? Anybody have any jewelry-flipping tips to share?
I hope you’ve enjoyed this little tutorial. We will be doing a bit of holiday traveling and celebrating over the next few days, so I might be a bit absent for awhile but I wish you all happy holidays and safe travels. Thanks so much for taking the time in this busy season to read my lil’ ole blog. 🙂 xoxo
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