If I had thought ahead, I would have taken a million pictures of the process of my making the necklaces. That is, if I had thought ahead. But I probably would have had way less fun and not changed techniques so much between necklaces. On A’s necklace (the blue one), I tried to make it girly using bows and matching colors. I wanted to counteract the industrialness of the nuts and chain I used in the necklace. With my necklace, it was more about the pop of color than the way the ribbons look.
That being said, I had a blast with my first DIY project! I went to the local craft store (not the fabric store) and looked around for what must have been half an hour trying to find stuff to make the necklaces. The nuts and chains are from a brand called Industrial Chic (examples of their stuff is here: http://www.michaels.com/Industrial-Chic%E2%84%A2/products-beads-collections-industrialchic,default,sc.html, but I would recommend looking at your store for more options) , and the ribbon is just a yard each of four different colors. The width doesn’t really matter, if your fingers are nibble enough. I decided what I wanted to do and played around with different ways to do it. Trust me, I know it’s vague, but the best way to make things your own is to realize what you want on your jewelry. I didn’t have a plan, which made things harder when it came time for my own necklace.
The whole price tag for the two necklaces was less than $20. At most stores, a similar necklace would be upwards of $25. Sure, there are some frayed ribbons, but if it unravels, it only costs $0.70 to replace and you know exactly how to fix it! The necklaces took under an hour to make, although I was sitting in front of the TV tinkering with them for a total of three hours. Although I love the feel and look of DIY stuff, I didn’t want random frayed ribbon edges hanging out. In the end, I turned A’s ends into bows and tucked my ends into other parts of the necklace. It took awhile to figure out, but in the end it looked much cleaner.
Of course, the best part of any DIY (or so I assume, as this was my first real one) is taking your piece out for a spin. A and I wore them the same day, at a barbeque her family threw, so I was lucky enough to see them both in action. Because of the strong colors, I would recommend wearing the cool, but neutral outfit. A rocks out a black and white jumper (jealous!) and I bounced around in a black ballerina-esque dress. If you have more chill colors, wear more out there clothes, but I like statement pieces to shine (especially when I put so much work into them!!).
I am going to attempt to be slightly more adventurous in my next foray into DIY. I am going to accent an old school sweater I have into something I might actually wear now. I love the shape and size of the sweater, but with the super fantastic school initials and the dull navy blue color, I can’t seem to find anything to wear it. I have a slight idea what I plan to do with it, but am open to suggestions, if anyone has any. So they say a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have two for you here. These are the necklaces. Again, A’s is the blue and mine is the purple and green. Enjoy and have fun making your own!
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