Friday, March 22, 2013

knock-offs: j.crew tesselate necklace



Loved this necklace I saw at J.Crew! It looked fairly simply constructed so I decided to tackle it myself. My version is modified slightly because I ran out of beads, so it doesn't have the two singles where the chain attaches.

materials -


  • 53 12x5mm rice beads
  • 52 eye pins + 1 head pin
  • 25 jump rings
  • 12" chain + clasp
  • round nose pliers
  • wire clippers

process -



Thread a bead onto an eye pin...



then, holding the pin with the round nose pliers at the end of the bead, wrap the end of the pin around the pliers using your finger.



Using your wire cutters, clip off the excess wire.



This is about the amount of wire you want left, so you'll have enough to...



bend the end of the wire around to close the loop, using the round nose pliers.



One bead completed! Repeat until you have 52 beads that look like this, and one that uses the head pin - they all use the same process.



To assemble, gently open a jump ring and place on the correct number of beads, then close. This picture is of the six bead cluster in the bottom middle (#25 on the diagram below).



This is what it should look like once the jump ring is closed.



Here's a diagram of how the beads are laid out. You can assemble them beginning wherever you'd like; it made the most sense to me to start from the top left corner and work my way across, then repeat for the right side and join the two together in the middle. When assembling 1 and 12, don't forget to include the chain in between the two beads!

Thursday, March 7, 2013

spray painted shoes

I love how versatile my gold flats are during the warmer months, so I thought having a pair of heels might be nice too. Most of the ones I had seen around were a little more spendy than I wanted… do I smell a DIY?! I think so :D



Found these lovelies at a thrift store near where I work… the fabric was questionable but I love the scallop-y detail and they’re surprisingly comfortable. Time for some spray paint intervention [paintervention?]



I painted over the fabric with some old acrylic paint I had laying around to cover up the stripes.



…then taped the soles to attempt to keep paint off of them [it was a good effort…]. Spray paint two coats of gold, then one coat of clear sealer, et voila!



A word of caution: you should not follow my example and spray paint in your basement without proper ventilation, unless you want fumes to migrate upstairs despite having several doors closed in between where you painted and everywhere else. Oh well… guess these sorts of projects are better done when it’s warm outside so you don’t have to deal with that :D