she's crafty

If you know me, you know I kind of love big, gaudy, sparkly jewelry. Usually that means cocktail rings. I love big, huge, door-knocker sized rings. But when I saw this necklace on the Madewell site I was smitten. But I am also somewhat frugal, at least when it comes to certain things. This necklace was not worth the NINETY-EIGHT DOLLARS they wanted for it. Those aren't even real diamonds! Then the gears in my brain slowly started creaking into action. I saw a DIY project in my future. I had a similar necklace and similar beads, so I got crackin'.

Madewell Version - $98

Katrina's Version - Mostly Free

I had the chain necklace that I got from Target for maybe $12 in the fall. I'm sure you can still find something similar either at Target or Forever21 and the like. The pink beads were a gift from my Great Aunt, who also has a love of all things gaudy. I get tons of old costume jewelry from her, and while a lot of it is ugly, these bead necklaces are cute. I have them in a bunch of colors too. I just threaded the pink beads in amongst the necklace. They probably would have stayed in place on their own, but I used an awesome little clasp my Great Aunt gave to me specifically to hold together long strands of beads. The necklace just closes as it normally would.

 You can kind of see the clasp in this picture, along with the other beads I have. It's just a gold circle that opens and has a little clasp on it. I'm sure they don't even make them anymore. Sorry for my lousy photos, I am no photographer, that's fo sho.

The Cut really likes this necklace too! (Madewell's, not mine. Though I am sure they would be impressed with my skillz.)

Special shout out to Great Aunt Evelyn for the beads!

I think I might do more posts like this since I have a few artsy-craftsy projects tucked up my sleeve. Plus, I am lusting after this book and as soon as I get my greedy little fingers on it I'm sure I'll have lots of disastrous projects to show off.