Tutorial Tuesday: Very Vintage Pendant Necklace

I received this fabulous connector from Lorelei Eurto the other day.  I have several of her connectors and clasps now; they have taken root in my stash and I'm struggling to pull them out and use them.  With this one, I decided I'd get it worked into a piece before it became ensconced in my hoard.  This is what I came up with.

Sometimes you want to wear just a relatively simple pendant-style necklace, but you want some thing  more than just a pendant on a chain or cord. That's what I was aiming for with this design.

I just love the vintage tins that Lorelei uses and I decided that I'd team her connector with a selection of other vintage goodies.  I've used vintage acrylic flowers, vintage Miyuki petal beads, and vintage sequins, all in co-ordinating colours.  Aside from these items, if you want to recreate this piece, you'll also need around 25cm of 0.6mm wire, some fine(-ish) chain (the amount you use will depend on where you want your necklace to sit), two head pins, a hook clasp, a couple of jump rings and a couple of seed sized beads. I've also used a czech glass flower coin and a Scorched Earth leaf drop (I promise I will do a tutorial soon that doesn't feature a SE component - just not today!) Obviously, I'm being very specific here with the last couple of ingredients; you could, of course, put all manner of items in their place. Start by threading a seed bead and an acrylic flower onto a headpin and attach it to the larger link at the bottom of the connector by wrapping the end of the pin round the link several times, then wrapping it around the back of the flower.

Next, add a second flower in the same way. Then take about 7cm of 0.6mm wire and secure one end, with a couple of wraps, onto the connector. Use this to fix the flowers into position, wrapping around the back of them. Trim when you are happy they are securely positioned. As you'll see, you don't need to be a demon wire worker to do this... ...ahem...

Take about 6cm of your wire and attach your ceramic leaf to the bottom of the connector, making a wrapped loop link with your glass flower coin. Then, attach a jump ring to the top of connector.

Take the rest of your wire and make a wrapped loop at one end. Start threading on the sequins until you have roughly 1.5cm. (For the sake of your sanity, I recommend you remove the sequins from their original strands by holding them in clumps between your thumb and forefinger, then threading a number onto your wire at a time.) Add a vintage petal bead, a centimetre of sequins in a contrasting colour, another petal bead, then another centimetre of your original colour of sequins. Thread on the connector using the jump ring you attached at the top, then keep adding sequins until you have an equal length of sequins on each side of your pendant. Finish your wire with a wrapped loop.

To complete your necklace, add one end of your chain to one side of the sequin bar and attach a jump ring to the other end of the chain. Finally, attach the hook clasp onto the other end of your sequin bar.

And there you have your finished necklace!

Now I have to decide whether to keep or whether to sell!

Claire

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