Thrift Store Blog Hop

Reveal day!  Whoohoo!

This is Sarah of Poodledo's first go at running a challenge and bloghop and I think she chose a great challenge :)

Here were the rules ;

• Go to the thrift store/charity shop and buy an item for less that £1 ($1.50 approx at the moment)
• Take a photo of the item when you get home 
• Take an "in progress" photo
• Take a photo when you have finished making your item
• And blog about it on Saturday August 4th.

 I'm constantly finding treasures at my thrift and second hand shops, so I didn't think I'd have any trouble at finding stuff within the budget. As a matter of fact, I knew my trouble would be in STOPPING finding things >.< lol I had a pair of metal candle holders that were layers of petals held together by a single screw and had plans to use them.... but that fell through >.< Luckily while I was growling and grumbling over my failed plans, I came across one of my lucky finds.

 Yes... that is a bag of jewelry for $0.88. Like I said, I find stuff like this all the time.. sometimes it's salvageable, sometimes it's not.

Here it is out of the bag.

 A HUGE necklace of resin 'amber' beads permanently attached to the string, a necklace of blue plastic beads, also permanently attached to it's string, and a black link necklace that I immediately had plans for... and promptly lost >.<

 And two necklaces of wooden beads .. the purple are wood but all the white on with them are plastic.

 So there's what I found and had to work with.

My first idea had me painting those big purple beads, and two of the medium round greens.  yup, this was one of my failed Panda projects >.<

I had them ALMOST finished before I messed up and had to scrap them .. shame since they'd been getting really cute...*sigh*

So one idea trashed.... onto the next !




So what did I use?

I used that 'Amber' necklace, the blue necklace, the smallest of the green wooden beads, and those stripey purple and white beads, and made three different pieces.

Here are the in progress shots of each.

First I had to alter some of it to work. Here I applied a light coat of black paint to the blue beads, then wiped it off again, leaving a black 'patina' .

 Once the 'patina' was varnished and dried, I began attaching it to the amber by weaving some black waxed cord through the 'three' strands.





And this is where I realize I forgot to take a picture of the second project in progress... oops >.<

and the dingy purple and white beads get painted in orange and 'turquoise'
... because I felt like it. so there :p







Ready to see the end results?

Above and to the right is the bracelet I forgot to snap 'in progress' . The greenish wooden beads strung on orange faux suede and knotted, with one of the black wooden beads as a button hole clasp.












so there you have it :) how I took a bag of 'junk jewelry' and reworked some of it. I'm not happy with the way I finished the ends of that 'amber' one... think if I do another one, or remake this one, I'll do the weaving with a suede or ribbon and cover the ends completely...

Participants 

www.pookledo.blogspot.co.uk

Deb - http://greenshoot.blogspot.co.uk/

Kimberley - http://goddessesandbeads.blogspot.co.uk/

Skye - http://skyescreativechaos.blogspot.co.uk/

Ambra - http://chicandfrog.wordpress.com/

Beti - http://stringingfool.blogspot.com/

Emma - www.apolymerpenchant.com

Shelley - www.shelleygrahamturner.blogspot.com

Tammie -  http://ttedesigns.blogspot.co.uk/

Leah - http://beadyeyedbunny.blogspot.co.uk/

Denielle - www.somebeadsandotherthings.com

Keri Lee - http://www.pinklemonade.typepad.com 

Rochelle - acreativechelle.blogspot.com

Pam - http://pamelas-studio.blogspot.com/

Ingetraud - http://ingetraud.wordpress.com/

Audrey - http://esperianterra.blogspot.com/

Julie Anne - www.thepeacefulbead.com

Sharyl - http://www.sharylsjewelry.blogspot.com

Micheladas - http://micheladasmusings.blogspot.com 

? -   http://thecreativeklutz.blogspot.co.uk/

Kala - http://maybejustperhaps.blogspot.co.uk/