Monthly Archives: May 2016

A new take on the button bracelet

This bracelet is something I made a while ago, as an experiment. I had this gorgeous, translucent Art Deco plastic button in a striking shade of cerise, with a gold-painted geometric motif. I wanted to incorporate it into a bracelet, but I couldn’t think how to make it work. Then I hit on an idea – make a button bracelet that only needed one button, and make the button act as fastener and focal point at the same time.

So I got a length of that cord stuff that is used to make piping for cushions, and covered it in black velvet. Then I bent one end back into a loop, and sewed the button at the other end. Bingo. It’s extremely comfortable to wear and can readily be stacked with other bracelets.

velvetbuttonbracelet

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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:

2garnetnecklaces