DIY: vintage rings

After an hour of extreme supergluing (along with extreme glue inhalation), my little collection of vintage earrings and brooches was transformed into a newly re-created collection of rings!

Let the photo roll begin!

Which one is your favourite? Leave me a comment! =D

DIY: vintage ring

A long time ago, I posted a DIY about making your own rings (found HERE). Since then, I've basically been carrying around a little heart-shaped box full of vintage earrings, brooches, and other potential knick-knacks that can be refurbished into rings and just haven't gotten around to busting out the superglue to finish the job. Well, A YEAR LATER, I finally took the time to make the rest of them. 

This one here is the first one I made. I had a vintage earring that just happened to fit perfectly into this large, round ring-blank I had. (You can find some simple instructions below).

Instructions:

******

1) I used pliers to take off the back of the earring.

2) I cut out a round piece of leather to fit into the ring blank.

   The ring blank was quite deep so I used the leather

   to fill up the extra space and to "cushion" the earring.

3) After gluing in the piece of leather, I glued the

    vintage earring on top... and TA DA!

    

The vintage ring is done! 

******

DIY: bobby pin necklace

I recently bought a can of gold spray paint, and ever since then, I've been obsessively coating every possible item I can think of with the Midas touch. 

Some projects went awry - like the metal box that I spray-painted (an overly-thick gold layer + Hong Kong humidity = bubbling effect = FAIL). But one of my projects - a gold bobby pin necklace - turned out pretty swell! 

I was first inspired by this gold statement necklace below. Even though I had already bought this one, I was curious to see if I could make something similar on my own. I'm always collecting random scraps and old odds&ends in the hopes of making something new.

So... I came up with this idea.

This necklace can be made with only THREE simple steps! Here's what you need:

STEP 1: The first step would be to spray-paint the bobby pins gold. (You could just use black bobby pins but I think gold -or silver - looks much better). Remember, it's better to spray-paint a few thin layers, letting each layer dry thoroughly before applying the next one. I was kinda impatient though, so the paint job on my bobby pins wasn't that great. haha.

STEP 2: Take the spray-painted gold bobby pins and simply insert them through the gaps of the rhinestone chain. I put three bobby pins in each gap (51 bobby pins in total).

STEP 3: Once you've created a nice golden "arch" with all the bobby pins, tie some ribbon at each end and trim off any excess rhinestone chain. To prevent the ribbon from fraying, use a lighter to singe the edges.

...and that's it! Here's the final product:

So there you have it - a cheap and simple statement necklace made out of bobby pins. I'm quite happy with the result... although I'm not sure when I'll wear it but I'm sure I can find an excuse of a fancy occasion to bust it out sometime in the future. =P 

DIY: chain & rhinestone bracelet

Awhile back, I visited the random electronic/fabric markets that the Sham Shui Po area is famous for. I found a little stall at the side of the street where a woman was selling old broken jewelry, so I bought a few rusty chains, brought them back home, and spray painted them gold.

I was thinking this gold chain would be great for a do-it-yourself bracelet so that's exactly what I did. This DIY tutorial has been done before by many other online bloggers, but I thought I'd still do a version, since it's such a simple & easy project! If you want to see what inspired me, visit this tutorial from I Spy DIY.

Anyway, hope you like it! The instructions are below...

I remember making a whole bunch of friendship bracelets back in Grade 6/7... Here's a particularly creative friendship-bracelet tutorial using gold chains, embroidery floss, and studs.

image via Honestly WTF

image via JaneandCompanyDesign