Vintage Golden Remix Jewelry

Over the past few months, I have played around with remixing a variety of vintage jewelry bits.

Old watch - turned into a "locket" removed the insides, added a bit of a dictionary and a rhinestone.

I think this might have been a clear glass drawer pull. Added other beads to bling it up.

Large pin turned into a pendant. Added another vintage bead and charm on one side of the chain as an accent.

Long chain made up from all the leftover bits of gold chains from other projects, all joined together.

All kinds of gold chains and mixed and twisted together.

Flower pin turned into pendant. Clipped onto on other mixture of gold chains.

I often play with all these bits off and on until I find a perfect combo. Enjoyed having a few snow days to finish up the projects.

 

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Be Thou My Vision

It is back to school time for me.  Recently at church we sang my favorite hymn "Be Thou My Vision." It was a good reminder as I start a new year to keep God first and foremost in everything I do and plan as I teach.  I adopted the phrase as my theme for the new year and made a "chalkboard" style poster to put in my classroom as a reminder.  (Click on the image above for a larger version - it is free for your personal use.)

Another phrase from the hymn is "Naught be all else to me, save that thou art."  I know all the "thous" are old fashioned, but sometimes I think it is a good poetic way to remind myself to reverence God.

As my last little creative fling of the summer, I made a soldered charm using the two images and wore it on the first day of school.  I really love how this turned out - hopefully can try it again with some other phrases.

Key & Star Necklace

A simple necklace with a long antique gold chain with a few fancy flowers, combined with a skeleton key and sparkly star charm.

Antique photo effect via the free Miracam app.

Stacking Bracelets in Turquoise and Aqua

I've had fun the past few days making several stretchy bracelets using odds and ends of turquoise beads in my stash.  I mixed in some charms, some Chinese crystals, a large fluorite bead, a quartz bead, and other bits.

I started with these two together.

A third bracelet with some soft aqua stone beads mixed with a bit of turquoise.

 

I especially love this one with the large fluorite stone bead - you can see a bit of purple mixed in the stone.

Sometimes the knots come loose when you use the stretchy plastic cord.  I always do a tight triple knot and then add a dot of super or Gorilla Glue on the knot.  I've had pretty good luck using this trick to keep the bracelets from falling apart. 

Zipper and Vintage Earring Flower Pin Tutorial

After finding a few red zippers with metal teeth at the resale store, I decided to try making a zipper flower pin. Here are the steps:

MATERIALS NEEDED: Zipper, vintage earring, felt circle about 2 inches across (I used felted wool), pin backing, hot glue

STEP ONE: Cut the zipper into 3.5 inch pieces. Overlap the ends and hot glue together.

STEP 2: Glue the petals onto the felt circle, overlapping. Tuck the last petal under the first petal.

STEP 3: Glue the earring into the center. (Remove the clip on backing first by twisting it forward with a needle nosed pliers and then snipping it off with a wire clipper.) Then glue the backing onto the back. Put the backing towards the top, not the center.

Tada! That's it! Pin onto a sweater for total cuteness!

Necklace Making with Andrea

Some of you may remember me telling about my dear friend Andrea who had a massive stroke about a year and a half ago. She has weathered major surgeries and multiple health conditions, but has been left paralyzed on her right side and unable to speak, although she is very mentally aware. Over the summer we started a jewelry making project that would allow her to use her creative side and provide her generous spirit with Christmas gifts to share with her friends and with the staff at the residence where she now lives.

I set up a box with compartments with different types of beads and a block of styrofoam. Andrea would stick a headpin into the styrofoam and could stack the beads with one hand as she designed each necklace. When done, I would use pliers to twist a loop on the top. Then she would select a charm that I would attach to the bottom.

We worked on the necklaces over several months and she completed over 30 of them. As Christmas approached, we worked together to string them on chains, make tags, and to put them in small fabric bags.

Here they all are - they looked like candy! Each one pretty and unique!

Right before Christmas, we had fun wheeling around her residence, so she could pass them out! It was a great blessing to be creative together with my friend!

Necklace Assortment

I bought an entire strand of these rust colored round stone beads. Not sure why - the challenge has been to come up with different ways to use them. For this one, I jazzed it up by gluing on a little silvery piece that has a tiny crystal in it.

My favorite new key necklace. I love the square earring that I epoxied onto a skeleton key. This picture really doesn't show much sparkle the earring has! The top is the perfect shape to hang for a necklace.

This is a blank gold frame I purchased somewhere online, but I have seen similar things at Lobby Hobby. I punched a round piece from scrapbook paper and then covered it with a round clear bubble sticker. Very easy! On top I epoxied an golden flower charm upside down and hung an old teardrop earring to dangle down.

Chandelier Crystal Necklace

This is what I did with one of the chandelier crystals that I picked up at an antique store at the beginning of the summer.


I started with a crystal and an old earring that I picked up in a bag of jewelry bits. I removed the clip from the earring and hung the crystal from the earring loop using some gold wire. For some added bling I added a couple other small dangling crystals.


I made the chain from two different thicknesses of gold chain. I used a latch at the end so that I could use the chain with other pendants. The chain is fairly long.

I've seen some other neat things done with these crystals to transform them into necklaces that I am hoping to try!

Bryce Canyon Necklace

A few years ago I picked up a necklace with earthy colored shiny stones while visiting Bryce Canyon. I snipped this necklace apart to use some of the stones to create this necklace.

I was inspired by the long black wire necklaces made by Rebecca Sower (and others). The black chain came from Michaels - it was a bit heavier than I wanted but I had trouble finding solid black chain. I also discovered that the wire I bought for this project had a copper core that shows a bit where it was snipped off. I didn't like that, but I didn't want to have to purchase different wire.

I liked being able to use a lot of beads in different colors. I used some soft aqua colored beads, some white, black, and clear quartz, some gray pearls, and some dark blue Chinese crystals. The stone beads in the natural shapes came from the necklace from the rock shop by Bryce Canyon. I think the orange beads add a little zing to the necklace. The color reminds me of the orange hoodoos that are in Bryce Canyon.

The large orange bead above comes from another necklace that I bought in India many years ago. It's kind of fun to include beads that have travel memories that have been remixed from old necklaces.

I added a vintage key to the end of the necklace. I've tried a couple keys and I'm still not sure that this one is the one I like because it hangs a little off center.

I wear this necklace in 2 or 3 loops around my neck depending on the outfit. It is a bit heavy so I wouldn't wear it on a hot day! I like it because the variety of colored beads go well with a lot of different colored outfits.

Red Coral Nugget with Jet Black Beads

I made this necklace years ago. It was one of my favorites, but it broke, and I just didn't have the time or patience to restring all those little sparkly black beads. But while looking for something to go with a flowery black sundress, I realized that the red coral would work perfect. So I spent part of my afternoon restringing the little beads, this time on thin wire rather than string. Hopefully it won't break again!

I'm looking forward to wearing this at a special dinner at the end of a conference I am attending next next week!