I was leaving the Desert Treasures Thrift
store in the tiny town of Ajo, Arizona when the proprietor handed me a
large Ziploc bag of “junque” jewelry and told me it was mine for $3.00. Well, I
couldn’t pass that up!
With my husband driving, I dumped
the contents of the bag out on my lap. Much of it was gaudy costume jewelry, mostly
80’s style and severely outdated. Yet, there were a few pieces which looked
vintage and interesting. I separated out the silver pieces and began to visualize
an eclectic choker design.
Here is a description of my "technique" (as we shall call it).
MY TECHNIQUE:
I decided
on a (I must admit, rather ugly) silver tone choker with an elephant engraved
on the front as the base for my choker. Next, the center front piece had to be
a bold, single earring! There was a vintage rhinestone necklace which I cut
into several short pieces. I also picked out a pewter color ‘Partridge in a
Pear Tree’ Christmas ornament which was chopped into smaller sections, a couple
of vintage clip-on earrings, a brooch with several rhinestones missing, a wine
glass identifier ring, another brooch and a handful of my faux pearls. Soon I
was busy deciding on a layout.
I added other
jewelry-making pieces I had purchased previously at the clearance rack of a
craft store. These were dog tags, each with a word engraved on them: “Journey”,
“Dream”, “Passion”.
As I began
to lay the pieces on the choker base, I decided on an incongruous, off-center
design for this very eclectic collection of silver tone pieces. On either side
of the choker would be pieces that would balance out the piece, without being
identical.
With the
layout complete, I decided on the 527 glue to attach the individual pieces.
I’ve used this strong bonding glue for many projects, from repairing shoes and
vases to gluing beads, glass, metal and plastic together for assorted crafts.
And here's the finished product!
"I'd rather have roses on my table than diamonds around my neck."
~ Emma Goldman
