Category Archives: necklaces

Coral necklace upcycling project

I haven’t posted in a while, due mainly to a lack of motivation and a lack of projects to post about! However, I have just finished what for me has been quite a big jewellery project, involving many nights watching Family Guy while passing nylon bead thread through many tiny coral beads.

The jumping off point for the project was this broken homemade necklace:

It’s not clear from the photo how this would have looked when worn (sadly one of the strands was broken otherwise I would have put it on and taken a picture), but it consisted of three different-length strands of coral beads, interspersed with some rather horrid imitation pearls where the pearl finish had worn off, leaving naked plastic behind.

I decided to restring the necklace – again, it would have three strands, but they’d be of equal length and the plastic pearls would no longer feature. I ended up with three strands, each just over 17 inches long. I found four big coral beads to join the strands together; luckily these had huge holes, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to fit three strands of nylon through them. Finally, I replaced the original gold-plated clasp with a sterling silver one.

This is the result:

As you can see for the last picture, I’ve extended the necklace using 1.2 mm thickness silver jump rings.

I’m pleased with the final result, although I think the necklace is crying out for an enhancer pendant set with turquoise/spiny oyster/pearl, along the lines of pieces by Carolyn Pollack/Relios. It would have to be a HUGE enhancer though. Maybe the charity shop fairy will be kind to me.

Silver cat pendant made from a brooch

I recently bought a lot of jewellery at auction, which included this sweet little cat brooch:

Sadly, the clasp wasn’t up to the job, and sheared off when I tried gently pulling it into shape. So I filed down the stump where the clasp had been, removed the pin and curled the hinge over so that it could act as a loop for a chain. The resulting pendant is now on sale in my Etsy shop, chain included:

This is my first excursion into selling handmade stuff on Etsy. We’ll see how it goes.

Is this necklace butterscotch amber? No, it’s Bakelite!

I won a box of jewellery bits ‘n’ bobs at my local auction house last weekend. It was mostly a load of broken glass and plastic necklaces, many of which I’ve put aside to donate to the charity shop. But I’m hanging on to these, at least for the time being:

They may form the basis for a craft project or two, or (more likely) I will sell them as a vintage supplies lot in my Etsy shop.

However, here is the main reason for my bid:

At first I thought it was butterscotch amber but the colour was too regular and the surface of the beads was too smooth. So I came to the conclusion that it was Bakelite. I restrung the necklace and replaced the broken clasp, and listed it in my shop.

There were a few things in there besides the beads, namely some cheap earrings and one or two tiny pendants. Including this St Christopher:

…which turned out to be 9 carat gold, and is also now for sale in my shop.

Blue John pendant… reborn as a necklace

I bought a small auction lot of pendants recently. One of the pendants consisted of a Blue John stone set in a silver mount. (Blue John is a distinctive purple fluorite stone found in a certain part of Derbyshire, and jewellery made with it is quite sought after.) It was only when I looked closely that I realised the bale was actually broken – someone had crushed it and the top had split. You can just about see this in the photo:

I thought it would be a shame to consign this sweet little pendant to the scrap heap. What’s more, I would like to eventually make a profit out of the items in the lot, so I converted the pendant into a necklace. I cut the bale off, used a file to smooth the place where it had been removed, and then attached some silver chain. And here is the result:

Have now listed it in my Etsy shop. Hopefully soon someone will find that they can’t live without it.

Mookaite necklace: upcycling project in waiting

I found this rather lovely necklace in the Pilgrim’s Hospice today – it cost me all of £1:

I’m pretty sure the big beads are all made of mookaite, a type of jasper that is mined in Australia. I adore the big, pebbly beads with their smooth surface and warm shades of plum and gold. However, I’m not keen on the small chips or the goldtone spacer beads. So I’m thinking that the big beads could be made into a Lola Rose-esque bracelet (or maybe even two bracelets). I already have the waxed cotton cord, so I’m good to go. And all for a quid.

Pentti Sarpaneva “lace” necklace – vintage mod style from Finland

I don’t buy much stuff in charity shops any more (unless you count clothing for myself – a £1 pair of M&S cord trousers in that elusive size 18L is too good to pass up). But when it comes to stuff for my shop, the charity shops don’t deliver any more… probably because most of them are putting the good jewellery and collectibles straight on eBay, rather than allowing us locals to get our paws on them.

However, sometimes the occasional good item slips through the net. I came across a trio of Norwegian silver forks in the Broadstairs branch of the Pilgrim’s Hospice last week. Sadly they were too expensive, but I did find this beauty:

It had a look of Scandinavian modernism about it, and I eventually remembered the name of the designer: Pentti Sarpaneva, Finnish craftsman who worked in bronze and silver during the middle of the last century. This particular necklace is from the “Pitsi” range – “pitsi” is Finnish for “lace”, and you can see why the range was so-named.

The necklace is now in my shop, and coupon code BLOG20 gets you 20% off this or any other item over £5.00. (Coupon code expires at midnight on 30th April 2017.)

Sterling silver Cleopatra necklace by Andreas Daub


I bought this sterling silver Cleopatra necklace about six years ago from a fellow seller when I first joined Etsy. I loved its elegant simplicity and the feel of the links in my fingers – very soothing and tactile. Near the clasp at one end are some hallmarks, including the signature “A*D” for German jewellery manufacturer Andreas Daub. I have a bit of a thing about Andreas Daub, as this post shows.

I’ve now put the necklace up for sale in my Etsy shop. Why would I do this, if I love it so much? Well, these days I’m “traditionally built” rather than slim, so my neck is no longer graceful and swan-like. Necklaces like this one don’t lie flat any more – they bend upwards at inappropriate moments, even when you add an extender chain. So it’s time this beauty found a new home, I think.

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Garnet choker (a tale of two necklaces part 2)

I’ve done something with the two necklaces I described in this post. All the garnets have been pooled together, along with a handful of garnet beads I had left over from an earlier project, to create this choker:

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The resulting necklace was about 16 inches long (i.e. too short for me) so I extended it a bit with some silver chain. The great thing about this necklace, apart from the lovely texture and colour of the garnets, is that it’s an ideal partner for pendants with a very large bale. The pendant stays put without slipping, and looks better (IMO) than it would on a thin chain.

Here’s me wearing the necklace:

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A tale of two necklaces – garnets and pearls

I bought these two necklaces (below) from different charity shops, within about a week of each other. Total cost: less than £4. Necklace no. 1 has a goldtone toggle fastening, some nice looking real pearls and faceted garnets (at least, they look like garnets. Definitely not plastic or glass). Necklace no. 2 has some decidedly uninteresting metal beads, plus a silvertone fastening. And more garnets. I’m thinking that I might cannibalise the two necklaces and create one single necklace just out of garnets. The pearls would make a nice stretch bracelet for stacking with other bracelets. The metal hardware can be given back to the charity shop.

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And here’s a close-up:

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Art Nouveau silver dragonfly thing repurposed into a necklace


This necklace is something I actually made several years ago, using some silver chain, a couple of jump rings and this stunning silver and enamel focal piece. I found it at a local boot fair for £2.50. The dragonfly and flower design is typical of the Art Nouveau period, and this is borne out by the hallmark – London 1898. The maker’s initials are PJB – no idea who that was (any information gratefully received). I have no idea what the focal piece was originally used for – whether it was jewellery or an ornament of some kind. The enamel is – to put it politely – knackered, but it it still looks stunning and in its new incarnation as a necklace, is one of my favourite pieces to wear.

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