What's Old is New Again...and More Awesome!

I'm proud to be showing off some goodies as an Artbeads.com Design Partner!  The latest challenge was  focused on taking something old and making it new again.  Good grief...there's so much potential there if you think of vintage jewelry or re-doing jewelry; the possibilities were a little overwhelming.  But, I decided to focus on metal.  I'm bringing some vintage metal into the picture and making it new again...and, I think, more awesome!  haaaaaaaaaaa  This is the first of two posts to share them.


First, I present a little mixed metal bouquet.  Well, maybe it's more like a little nosegay, but there are flowers in the centerpiece nonetheless.  I wanted to try out the Artbeads.com base metal pendants and see how I could use them.  This piece has a Nunn Design copper-plated "tag" pendant that's a nice oval with an oval cutout.  I thought about trying to hammer and texturize it, but then decided to go ahead and punch a hole in it.  My metal hole punch went through like butter for a nice clean hole.  From there I layered on some vintage flower pieces that I've been hoarding.  I fastened the flower layers together with a piece of copper that I "balled" the last time I had the torch out.  I left the oxidation on there to add a little extra dimension to the collection of patina on the flower petals and leaves.

I considered keeping it simple and putting the pendant on a chain by itself but decided to pull a little more metallic color and texture into it with a leather bail using copper crimp ends and a bunch of round beads--including some nicely worn vintage metallic finished rounds that have a rich, genuine patina.  Plus, I used some big 10mm bronze colored Swarovski pearls that bring in a little shine.

This piece is now listed for sale in my Etsy shop. 

The main focus of this post is to share some Artbeads.com goodness, which I'm happy to do not only because they provide things for me to try out, but also because I've been shopping at their site since I first started seriously beading in 2007.  They were the first beading website I used and won't ever forget the fun I had shopping for my first crystals.  Heck, I think I still have some of them here somewhere in the hoard!!  haaaaaaaaaaaaa 


I'll share more tomorrow with my other piece, including the inspiration from Cindy Wimmer's tutorial over at Pretty Things...

Disclosure:  I received the following products free of charge from Artbeads and I am honestly reviewing them:  Nunn copper-plated tag pendant, bronze 10mm Swarovski pearls, and JBB copper crimp ends.  I have not been paid for my endorsement as it pertains to the products received .   The post above represents only my personal opinion.