Ring a Ring o' Roses

The 1940's jewelry I usually find from flea markets and vintage or antiquity events, are the ordinary and humble ones that are manufactured from different metals. 

From my own collection.

Don´t get me wrong, they are cute, but I´m longing for some bright colors, kitschiness, chunky bakelites and quirky shapes! Jewelry that fullfills my criteria is either hard to find or expensive to buy.. Or both. But nout to worry! The problem is solved by making the desired jewelry by hand. As I said on the first post, I know it is not the same thing as having the authentic pieces, but as a defence I can say many women crafted their own accessories especially in the war time. First I want to show you some necklaces that inspired me and then give out some insructions how I made my own 40's inspired necklace.

Here´s something big, plastic and pretensious for you to enjoy:

 Sold here.

Sold here.

It doesen´t always have to be about plastics! Wood, leather or knittings are also the way to go:

Sold here.

 

Pattern sold here.

I wound up trying the wood, because it is the most simple to find in different shapes (and I´m not such a great knitter). 

 To make this necklace I bought seven unfinished circular and seven unfinished round wooden beads and painted them with bright red craft paint. The amount of beads depends on the length of the necklace. To join the circle and the round bead I needed headpin needles.

When joining the two beads make sure the hole of the round bead is small enough so the headpin doesen´t slide through. I didin´t so I had to use an electicians socket (the silver one in the picture above) inside the round bead to make the hole smaller.

Then I made a loop at the end of the headpin needle with some crafting  pliers.

The last phase is to tie the beads to a string from the hook that was made in the last picture. I used this nylon beading cord I have seen beeing used in the 40's necklaces. The beads are tied about 1.6 inches/4 cm apart from each other. At the ends of the cord I tied some nude colored beads.