How to make a new upcycled necklace from an old one

I've recently bought a vintage necklace that looked rather old style and dusty. However, the beads were of high quality and of a very pretty color. They reminded me cranberries of all sizes and shades of red. I decided to upcycle the vintage necklace and turn it into something more contemporary and hip.



First of all I cut the necklace with a help of regular scissors to free up beads. I was lucky that the base of the necklace was a regular cotton thread and not a metal wire.
Beads looked very nice but were a bit dusty. I washed them with soap and left them to dry.



Once dry I put my beads in a glass jar. They looked so pretty with light coming through the jar and making beads shine. Beads are of all shades of red and of different sizes. I decided I won't use metal beads that were originally a part of the necklace. I'll to save them for a later project.



To crochet a new and hip necklace I used a crocheting hook and a super thin light blue thread. The combination of bright red and light blue looked super pretty! For a start I threaded all the beads mixing up sizes and colors. It saved me time and made the process of crocheting a necklace easier.



Having so many beads I was able to crochet a long necklace. It's really great as I'll be able to wear it not only as a necklace but as a bracelet, a belt or a head accessory. I crocheted a simple foundation chain adding red beads about every inch. The necklace crocheting took about 15 minutes. When the necklace was ready I attached a toggle clasp to complete the work.

It looks bright, hip, and very different from the original vintage necklace I bought. The new necklace is a perfect summer accessory! I'm especially happy I could reuse something I already had and turn it into something new.

Summer jewelry by Alery

When I first saw colorful earring and pendants by Alery I instantly fell in love! Bright summer colors of Alery earrings radiate positive energy and make me think about ocean vacation, exotic flowers and refreshing cocktails at a beach.
I was curious about the technique and materials these bright pieces are made from. Thus, I simply had to talk to Avery and share what I’ve learned.

Could you please tell us a bit about yourself?
My name is Valery and I was born and raised in Kiev, Ukraine. It’s a beautiful city with rich history and beautiful ancient churches. A few years ago my husband, our two children and I moved to California where we now live in a small city not far from San Francisco. I work in IT but in my spare time I turn into a jeweler.



How did you start?
I’ve always been into crafting and art. Over years I’ve tried different crafts, techniques and fibers. Finally jewelry making became my main passion. I started about six years ago with incorporating precious stones and beads into my jewelry. Later I moved to wire wrapping techniques and metal. Nowadays I mostly work with hot enamel. I love to experiment and to incorporate completely different techniques into my creative process.



What are your main sources of inspiration?
On one hand I’m inspired by the diversity and sophistication of nature. One can indefinitely contemplate intricate creations of nature finding something new and surprising every time.

On the other hand man made objects can be as beautiful. Apart from nature architecture and art serve as great sources of inspiration. The simplicity and elegance of minimalism where every shape and every line have a well defined meaning and purpose prompt me to create simple yet bright and colorful jewelry items.



Could you tell us about the technique you use in jewelry making?
The technique I use is called enameling. A metal surface is covered with a finely grounded glass powder. The surface is then heated to about 1450F so that the powder melts and fuses together. One can use either kiln of hand torch to heat the powder.

It usually takes a few melting iterations for a jewelry piece to be ready. With each iteration a jeweler can change the color of the glass powder, its quantity and transparency. As a result most of the pieces turn out to be one of a kind and completely unique as it’s simply impossible to replicate them.

The process of enameling offers a jeweler a lot of freedom for creativity and experimentation. The results are sometimes very surprising and unpredictable. I totally love it!

Summer Wedding Essentials contest results

Russian Artists team on Etsy just had its Summer Wedding Essentials contest. Fifty six team shops took part in the contest submitting their hand made wedding-themed items. All of the entries were fantastic! They can be checked out at Russian Artists Facebook Page.

Although all of the items submitted were amazingly beautiful, creative and unique, I picked up a few of my personal favorites. All of the wonderful items presented will make any wedding an unforgettable experience!

1. Dog Crochet Wedding Floral Collar by mailo


2. Event Decor for the Wine Glass by MamaTita


3. Tea Set, Original decorative painting by Yury Tarler


4. White earrings with pearls by HoneyCase2

Summer suncatcher by FleetingStillness

I've recently received an amazing gift from a very talented stained glass artist FleetingStillness who lives and works in Maryland.

It's always nice to receive gifts from fellow artists who are members of vast and diverse hand made community. When such gifts turn out to be beautiful hand made pieces of art it's twice as nice!

I always had a soft spot for pieces made of glass. I praise glass for its transparency, variety of colors and opportunities for creativity. The suncatcher I've got is made of bright yellow and blue glass and a copper foil. It was created in a "Tiffany" style meaning no lead was used to attach pieces of glass.

The suncatcher is a perfect summer gift. The sun shines through brightly colored glass lighting up everything around and making me happy! Yellow and blue colors are of the warm sea, sand beaches and vacations! This piece of art will always remind me of the summer. From now on I'll have a small part of an ocean beach in my room.


Alla, thank you for such a great gift!

Dyeing hand felted bracelet with blue Kool Aid

Since I bought plenty of blue colored Kool Aid on line I continue experimenting with dyeing different hand felted items in bright blue. This time I decided to create a hand felted bracelet.

I first hand felted eight beads mixing white and dark blue wool. To read more about how to make wool beads please visit my earlier post.

To create a blue dyeing mixture I poured Kool Aid blue raspberry drink mix into a plastic container with water. It's important to stir the mixture well before soaking beads in it. Thus, the color will be applied equally on all the beads.

When my dyeing mixture is ready I placed all my eight hand felted wool beads into the container and microwaved it for about 3 minutes or until it starts boiling. Don't overheat the beads as they can get burned! Please be careful handling beads after the microwave as they get extremely hot!

My beads absorbed bright blue color. They now look like marbles with spots of light and dark blue.

Dyed beads could be turned into a necklace, a bracelet or a pair of earrings. I decided to create a jewelry set this time. First I made a bracelet chaining six beads together. I still have two blue beads left. They will look great as a pair of earrings.

The set is of bright colors of sea waters, ocean lagoon and sky. It's completely unique as beads were hand dyed and now have their own special color. That's the beauty of hand dyeing. It creates unique colors and special items!

Deep greens of the summer

With spring bloom almost over we are moving towards a more subtle green summer season. However, greens are not boring! The deep green color of leaves, grass and trees comes in a lot of different hues.

We still can find fresh and young leaves that have this optimistic color of lime. They are tender and fragile and it will take them some time to turn into deep green mid summer leaves.

Don't get upset that all the spring flowers are gone. Take your camera and go for a picture hunt in the green of the summer! I promise you will find lots of cool green objects worth to be displayed on your living room's wall.

Fresh Spring Flowers in Lavender and Violet

I saw those beautiful flowers on a bush near my house. The bush has just started to bloom and is covered with lavender violet colored tender and fragile flowers. It's such a short period when all those flowers are out to make us happy. I try to carry my camera with me all the time.

Flowers inspire me to create earrings, necklaces and bracelets. I like to work with silver plated wire as it enables me to make twisted designs reminiscent of beautiful vintage smith craft and metalwork that one still occasionally come by at an antique shows nowadays.

Bright green spring pendant

I recently went shopping for new art supplies and came across those beautiful large clear glass beads. They are of that beautiful spring green color that radiates positive energy and makes one feel happy. The nature is still recovering from winter and our early March color palette is mostly grey and dull yet. A vivid green clear glass bead immediately attracted my attention!
I thought the bead will look great on a simple mercerized cotton thread of a neutral light beige color. I crocheted the thread and turned the whole thing into a pendant. The pendant looks simple yet elegant and will go well with pretty much anything. The beautiful green color will remind us all that spring is around the corner!

Bright red felted necklace for spring and summer

I love bright colors! They make our life spicy and vivid. I've created my bright red necklace of hand felted beads. It's ideal for spring and summer. Juicy berry color will go well with any vacation dress. It will match the colors of spring bloom and summer flowers well!

San Diego as a New Year vacation destination

I've been to the West Coast just once and loved it. The way people live and work there is somehow different from the way people go about their business in the East Coast. I just recently came across beautiful vacation pictures of the East Coast by IrinaPhotography. It sounds like a great tradition to go on a family trip to San Diego around New Years. What a fun way to start a new year!

Spring necklace in lime yellow and blue

I totally fell in love with felting yarn of that bright yellow lime color. It radiates so much positive energy and besides is a perfect color for spring and summer. To contrast bright lemon I added dark blue beads. Those two colors look beautiful together. The necklace will go well with bright spring dresses!

Summer earrings in green blue cream

The winter is almost over! I don't know about you but I'm already thinking about deep blue colors of the ocean and pale yellow, cream, bleached out colors of a beach. I'm ready to have a break from white cold snow and immerse myself into sunny days somewhere near the sea. Blue, green, yellow, cream are my favorite colors these days!

Damselfly at Camp Merryelande

I came across these Dragonflies - Damselflies at Camp Merryelande, a really cool spot for summer vacation at the beach. It's a rather undeveloped and wild place but that's exactly why we like it so much.

Surrounded by tall grass and pine trees the camping is very secluded. One feels being in a jungle full of unique birds and beautiful damselflies.

These insects are actually ideal models as they normally freeze for a minute or two on a leaf or a piece of wood before leaping to a similar object nearby. A photographer has enough time to make a good shot. These are beautiful creatures definitely worth being photographed.

My first GIVEAWAY results

My first ever Giveaway ended yesterday, June 24th. Thank you so much for participating. I very much appreciate your time and attention!

I ran the number of comments through a random generator.


Let us congratulate Tina Reynolds who won the set of my handmade beach bracelets in berry cream sherbet!!!

Congratulations Tina!!!

Giveaway: Beach bracelets in berry cream sherbet

I so much like summer colors of pink, berry, strawberry, raspberry, sherbet and fuchsia. They add color to any summer outfit. In combination with grey these colors look very elegant and stylish. I handmade this set of three bracelets in pink for a summer at the beach. They are water resistant and easily adjustable. The bracelets attach well and will fit any wrist.

I'm hosting my first giveaway ever! One lucky giveaway participant selected by True Random Number Generator will win my handmade beach bracelets in berry cream sherbet next Thursday, June 24.

To enter:

Please visit my Etsy shop TonyaUtkina and leave a comment about your favorite item in my Etsy shop. Don't forget to leave your e-mail address so I can contact you in case you win. Your e-mail info will NEVER be used for any other purposes!!!

Extra entries:

Please leave one separate comment for each entry. (So if it is 2 extra entries for example, leave 2 comments, etc.)

1 entry - follow my blog with Google friend connect

1 entry - follow me on Twitter TonyaUtkina

1 entry per day - retweet the following message and post a comment about it (just copy and paste the following into the twitter window). Can be done daily:
RT @tonyautkina GIVEAWAY Beach Bracelets berry cream! Visit my blog http://www.tonyautkina.blogspot.com/2010/06/beach-bracelets-in-pink.html

2 entries - grab my button and put it on your blog

4 entries - blog about this giveaway

No purchase is neccessary, but if you happen to buy something you will get extra 5 entries .

Open to US and Canada only. Winner will be chosen by online random generator. Winner will be notified by e-mail on Thursday, June 24, 2010 and will have 3 days to reply or another winner will be chosen.

Good luck!:)

A green dragonfly in the Fan

I accidentally noticed this beautiful emerald green dragonfly in our front yard in the Fan, Richmond, Virginia. It was very calm and tranquil so that I could rush back home to grab my camera and be back in time to take a good shot. I actually like this combination of emerald green with green background and a few black spots on dragonfly's tail (I'm not sure it's called "tail" though). I wish someone could tell me how this beautiful creature is called!

Beach bracelets blue green yellow

I love the summer colors of blue oceans, green mint from cocktails and yellow sun and sand. For a perfect day at the beach I've created this set of three colorful bracelets that are water resistant and adjustable. They will add color to your summer gowns and beach outfits.

Caipirinha recipe

I love Caipirinha! It's just an excellent summer cocktail drink. Take Brazil's cachaça, lime and sugar and mix it up well. Add some ice and you will get a tasty and dangerous drink. It's just perfect for an evening with friends. Enjoy!!!

Candy earrings in amber gold

I like sunny bright colors and items! Golden, amber, yellow and orange are my favorites at the moment! I created these earrings of high quality amber colored Czech glass and silver plated wire. Large beads look like candy that shines and glistens in the sun making earrings very pretty. Their simple and minimalist design will go well with bright and vivid summer dresses and will add color to any business casual outfit.

Minimalist blue aquamarine fish earrings

I created this minimalist and elegant fish shape earrings of beautiful blue aquamarine glass cubes. These Czech beads are made of high quality glass and shine and sparkle under the sun. Earrings are very easy to put on and take off. They will match almost any summer dress and will add style and color to business outfits as well.