Love Murano

Re-cycling and now up-cycling, or I would say reusing, are big practices at the moment.  Everyone currently is being careful with money and reusing things that you already have is a good way to make new things.  If you have a crafty nature, that’s making things rather than being dodgy, then I am sure it is something you’ve always done taking old items and reusing parts of them to make new things.  Up-cycling jewellery is the same process either reusing parts to make something new or to embellish something else.

Jewellery is a good sorce of materials for up-cycling, we have all had jewellery that we have loved wearing and then it has sat in a box for ages or part of it is damaged but you don’t want to through it away so why not up-cycle that pre-loved jewellery or get someone like me to do it for you.

A couple of weeks ago I was given a brown paper bag and inside was a selection of polished cream coloured agate beads.  They had been used before but were now just beads ready to be made into an up-cycled necklace.

To make the necklace I laid out the beads and chose the order in which they looked best, as they varied slightly in size.  I decided that they needed something between them to help with movement of the necklace and to add another aspect to the necklace, so I used 5mm sterling silver beads and Swarovski crystals and mixed them.  The mixed beads were also the right size for covering the unsymmetrical ends of the polished agate beads.  In this case the other beads were new but you could use beads from another piece of old jewellery and up-cycle them both together.

The back was finished off with more Swarovski crystals and a sterling silver clasp to create a bespoke necklace and made to last another life time!  Let me know what you think about re-cycling and up-cycling jewellery or contact me if you have any jewellery you want to give a new life to.

Thanks for reading  Siân  :0)