DIY Bridal Jewelry

My mom and I went to a craft store over the weekend. We were roaming through the aisles sort of aimlessly, checking out stuff and getting ideas for future projects. We ended up in the jewelry making aisle. I have long said that I wanted to try making my own jewelry, and a picture on the wall gave me inspiration. I knew I wanted to wear pearls for my wedding jewelry, why not make my own necklace? My mom and I were completely clueless about where to begin, we both agreed that the project was do-able, we just didn't know how. So in true "Jenny and her mom" fashion, we put caution to the wind and went for it. I got two packages of glass pearls, a package of silver glass seed bead, and a string of lavender Austrian crystal. We had an associate help us with what to string the beads on, we originally had a gold wire, but the associate directed us to clear mono-filament string. For clasps, we figured that we both have jewelry kicking around the house that was broken or we didn't wear and we could just take that apart.

Once I got home, I was excited to have a new craft project to work on and immediately got to beading. The mono-filament string was really easy to string the beads on, and I quickly got myself into a pattern, three pearls followed by a crystal, with silver seed beads as spacers. I was really impressed with how elegant the design came out, especially for my first piece of handmade jewelry. Originally, I was only planning on making a necklace, but as it turned out, I had enough beads to make a coordinating bracelet. I still have some beads left over that I am planning on using to make matching earrings, but I need some more supplies to make those. 

For the clasp, my mom brought down a necklace to take apart that she got when she was still married to my dad. It was a simple gold chain with a crystal heart engraved with an "H". I didn't want to throw the charm away, so I added it to my bracelet as a way to commemorate my maiden name. All in all, this was by far the easiest project I have done so far. I attached the clasps by simply tying square knots in the string. Based on my success with this project, I'm pretty sure that I will be making my bridesmaid's jewelry too.