Monday, September 10, 2007

Repurpose / Recycle

Recently I came into possession of my Grandmother's old, mostly inexpensive, jewelry. My goal is to repurpose / recycle most of it by combining as much as possible with hand made art beads and pendants. Here is my first attempt:

Original necklace with shell chips, ~3mm plastic rounds, 8mm round wood beads and aluminum bead caps.

Finished necklace includes all original components (except the clasp) with addition of 5mm wood rounds, iridescent amber seed beads, copper chain and toggle, while featuring a Virginia Miska pendant.

Leave us a post about your adventures repurposing / recycling - this is gonna be fun!

- Elaine

7 comments:

melanie brooks said...

Wow, what a big difference, Elaine! This is a great post, and it inspires me to look at all the old garage sale bead necklaces I have been given, to try some repurposing of my own!

Anonymous said...

Jenni Pagano is doing some pretty cool jewelry which uses recycled sweater felt. You all should check it out - the colors are just lovely:

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=54624

If that link doesn't work, her Etsy ID is:

PaganoDesignWorks

Christine

Jenni said...

Thanks for the nice comment Christine! This is a wonderful site...I've never seen it before. So much talent shown here!

Elaine Ray said...

Christine - I have never even heard of recycling wool sweaters this way, very cool! Thanks for sharing this technique and the eye candy with us.

- Elaine

Leslie Todd said...

Elaine, the necklace looks great! I didn't realize there was such a thing as aluminum bead caps. I'll have to go take a look at my old stuff.

Elaine Ray said...

Thanks for the compliment. Wish I could tell you more about the bead caps - but I have no idea. Good luck looking through your piles - I bet you find some real treasures there!

- Elaine

Anonymous said...

Very beautiful elaine! you should sell it on ebay!