Happy “Pinspiration Monday” to you! If you are just tuning in, this is a weekly feature where I share my journey transforming Pinterest pins into reality, complete with a few of my own little tweaks and adjustments here and there. Today, I’m chatting about my DIY neon bib necklace.
Confession: I am a little obsessed with fashion. Not so much on my own body (because I simply can’t afford to), but on the pages of Vogue, up on the big screen, on blogs, etc. etc. The colors, textures, patterns and silhouettes are just so captivating. I think probably the main reason why I love fashion so much is because it’s easily synonymous with home fashion. Take chevron and ikat for example. These two patterns have swamped home fashion – upholstery, curtains, paint treatments – you name it. But they are also seeping into clothing fashion. And, hello? Anyone ever heard of a little thing called color blocking? Yeah, that’s happening EVERYWHERE.
Lately, I’ve been seeing a lot of fashion trends hitting the DIY circuit on Pinterest, namely jewelry. Creatives are coming up with fun, affordable and ACHIEVABLE ways to recreate designer jewelry pieces for people like me who want the look for a fraction of retail price. This is what led me to pin this image:
Source: P.S. – I made this…
Now THAT’S a neat idea – Rubber key I.D. rings made into a neon bib necklace? I was all of over it in no time.
First stop – Our local home improvement store to pick up some key rings. The ones I found came in a pack of four, each in a different neon hue – So I bought four (at 92 cents apiece) to make sure I had enough of each color.
After dumping them on my work table, they sort of read a little “Fruit Loop” cereal to me. I decided to nix one of the colors, pushing the green ones to the side.
Next I needed the metal parts to actually construct the necklace. I picked up a big spool of gold chain at a nearby craft store for $9.99 – I know, that’s not the CHEAPEST thing in the world, but the spool holds a whopping 7 yards of chain, so I am going to be able to make dozens of necklaces from this one purchase. I’ve already got an idea for a second necklace design – More on that in the coming weeks.
The last supply needed was a pack of split rings – This little package from the same craft store only cost me $2.99. I went with a gold that matched my chain for a seamless look.
When I sat down to put the necklace together, I grabbed a pair of needle-nose pliers and wire cutters from our toolbox. These were only two tools that I ended up needing and they worked like a charm, especially the pliers. It sure beat having to open all of those split rings by hand…
Using the wire cutters I cut a 20 inch length off of my spool of gold chain, but (spoiler alert) ended up cutting it down by about an inch and a half once I finished the necklace and tried it on for size – You’ll see why as you scroll on.
While my Pinspiration image showed a necklace composed of only two colors, I had three to work with. I wanted to copy the orange/pink color scheme, but would have needed to run out for more packs of the I.D. rings and I just didn’t feel like it at that moment. So I incorporated the happy yellow rings too.
I tried several different combinations before settling on the final look…
The one I chose (below) seemed a bit less chaotic and all-over-the-place compared to the first thoughts.
After that, it was just a matter of connecting the “O”s using the split rings. My process was fairly methodical – Using my thumb nail, I pried the two halves of the split ring apart (think how you thread keys onto big keychain split rings). Then I pushed the nose of the pliers between the metal to keep the ring apart and slipped the rubber key I.D. ring onto the split ring. A few twists and pulls later and the rubber ring came free inside the metal split ring.
I went down the line and connected each ring to the next in the three rows. After a little bit, the process became sort of methodical and I didn’t even have to think about what I was doing. It was definitely fun to see the shape come together at this point, and the little sparkle from the gold was just what the colored rings needed to make them seem less like cereal and more like jewelry.
Once the rows were connected, I started connecting them vertically with more split rings.
A couple extra split rings later to connect the ends of the top row to the ends of the gold chain, and I called this project DONE.
Once I snapped that finished photo though, I noticed that it seemed just a tad long – It was simple enough to fix by detaching the chain and shortening it by about an inch or so using the wire cutters. The shorter chain makes the “bib” part of the necklace design spread out more and you can see all of the colors and circles better.
I love the color, I love the drapy shape, I looooove the hint of gold sparkle and, costing only about $4.46, I’d say it was a job well done…
For more “Pinspiration Monday” projects, check out the full list of links here.
P.S. This project was also featured as a guest post for Breathe Magazine. Feel free to click over and take a look (especially if you’d like to see an extra oh-so-cheesy photo of me in the necklace…) – Enjoy!
P.P.S. This project is also being linked up on Young House Love, Centsational Girl, Bower Power and Ten June as part of their Summer Pinterest Challenge – Click the links for their own fabulous Pinterest DIYs!!
