Handmade Necklaces

A wise woman (Patsy from Absolutely Fabulous) once said, ‘You can never have enough hats, gloves and shoes.’

The same could be said for rings, earrings and necklaces.

It’s the latter that has been my recent obsession--I can sit down with a head full of ideas and my boxes of recycled and gifted beads and end up with something nice and new to wear around my neck!

Here are a few of my recent creations:

 Hunters Necklace

I made the base of this necklace with a combination of cord and chain (including an old chain bracelet).

The whole inspiration comes from the vintage stag button, which was given to me. Whilst I don’t condone hunting for sport, the theme became ‘hunting in the times of old’, meaning when hunting for food was practically a necessity.

 Heritage Necklace

This is another necklace inspired by something given to me! In this instance the inspiration came from the old coins, which came into my possession with the holes already in them. The oldest (and largest) coin is from 1881!

 Black Beads & Button Necklace

The button is the inspiration for this necklace. I wanted a simpler necklace that would allow the button to become a feature, rather than one charm amidst many.

To avoid making the necklace too plain, I included small orangey beads (from a broken necklace) on the strand of smaller black beads.

 Beads & Bow Necklace

I made this one using ribbon from a chocolate box, a gifted button, and a selection of beads. The inspiration was the colour of the larger beads, which came off a broken necklace.

*A tutorial for how to make this necklace is now up!

 ‘Cameo Collage’ Necklace Knockoff

This necklace was made following a tutorial on Flamingo Toes (one of my favourite crafty places to visit!) It’s a knockoff of a necklace by Anthropologie, which is itself gorgeous, but far beyond my price range.

For this necklace I used a heap of charms that had been accumulating in my supplies! These charms came from my Nanny, an uncle, my mum, stuff from my childhood, old necklaces, random charms bought in Glastonbury and even a couple of cheap card-making charms! I’d been saving them up for something special and when I saw the tutorial on Flamingo Toes, I knew I’d found that something!

Check out the Cameo Collage necklace knockoff tutorial on Flamingo Toes here.