Vintage treasures from elastic bracelets
July 1, 2008 by Cyndi Lavin
Filed under Bead Stringing, Beading, Mixed Media, Technique Tuesday, Tutorials & Techniques, Wearable Art
Technique Tuesday!
Over the years, I have managed to acquire some really ugly expansion bracelets, sometimes as a part of some vintage jewelry grab-bags I purchased. They were not signed pieces, and the elastic was worn out. Honestly, I wouldn’t have worn them (and probably couldn’t have sold them) even if I were to restring them on new elastic. Because, as I said…they were UGLY! So they sat and they sat, collecting dust for a long time, since I just never got around to putting them away.
But one day, as I was playing around with some multicolored baroque-style glass pearls, I noticed that the cut glass hearts of one bracelet seemed to pick up some of the colors of the pearls when they were mixed together. That was it! I decided to make a collar-style necklace out of them. As you can see from the pictures above, I did not stop at just one. While I wouldn’t necessarily suggest taking apart a bracelet that is signed or otherwise valuable, this is a great way to recycle some of those old 70’s and 80’s elastic two-holed clunkers.
Here are the basic steps that I took to create the “VintageHearts” necklace shown above. With a few modifications, the instructions can easily be adapted to any set of large two-holed beads you have.
Nice design!! I like vintage trend
I know exactly what you mean by recycling horrifically ugly jewelry! I do it all the time, and more often than not, end up with gorgeous designs. Oh, I wanted to tell you that I have an idea for this year’s BJP. I’m excited, as it is my first one.
I like pearl and shell jewelry
That’s great, Tamara! I can’t wait to see what everyone decides to do. I’m narrowing down the list