Giveaway: Vintage Necklace & Pearl Pins

Happy Thursday!  I hope you're all enjoying your week thus far and gearing up for the holiday weekend ahead! My mom has been in town, so I've had a little partner in crime hanging out with me while I work.  We managed to sneak in some thrifting, an Ice Blended stop at Coffee Bean (her fave drink that she can't get in NC), and a whole lot of time catching up and celebrating birthdays with friends.  I'm busily working on a bunch of pieces that will get some wear this weekend!

In the interim, here's a little giveaway for today.  A vintage necklace with lime/purple/clear stones and two granite pearl woven bobbie pins.  I love this color palette!

To enter, leave a comment below of what's on your Labor Day agenda?  Are you prepping for school?  Having a BBQ?  Going out of town/having a staycation?  My mom's LA trip concludes today but heads to the mountains for the weekend when she gets home.  I'm loving her holiday schedule!  (All winners of the past four giveaways will be revealed next week, so catch up and get some last minute entering in by clicking on the GIVEAWAYS link here or on the right of the page!)

Wednesday Remake: Ruffled Skirt

I think I grabbed this skirt mostly for the pure weight of it.  It was heaaaaaavy!!

I mean, check out this wingspan!

The floral print was attractive, but I'm not gonna lie...this skirt totally reminded me of the outfits that the waitresses wore at El Torito when I was a kid.  Perhaps that's why six-year-old Marisa was obsessed with going there for birthdays.

Wearing this skirt is a total workout, so it's time to make it a little lighter!

I decided that all the eyelet lace at the bottom of the skirt was going to go!  I grabbed a seam ripper and started the journey to the center of the Earth.

Yep, as simple as this was, it took a VERY long time.  Jules Verne could have written the sequel in the amount of time it took to get all the way around this seam.

I was left with enough material to make a bed skirt!

I took a lint roller to grab all the bits of thread that were still in the seam, because it was quicker than cleaning up by hand!

That's it!!  I decided to keep the rest of the skirt intact and paired it with a turquoise tank and some heels.

What a huge difference in just one, albeit long, step!!

It's really like night and day, and this new skirt definitely wouldn't be El Torito appropriate anymore.  Well, it's been SO long since I've been to one, so who knows...perhaps the wardrobe has changed since the early 80s!

This might be part of my Labor Day wardrobe...easy, breezy, and something that works with heels or flip flops!

Throwing it in the suitcase now!!  It would have put my suitcase over the weight limit at the airport in the before stage :)

DIY: Fringed Beaded Necklace

Today's necklace DIY is one of my favorites!! I started with this metal plate that was taken from another necklace that was falling apart.  (You can see the scattered jump rings leftover on a few of the holes from things that used to be hanging off of them!)  Using this as the centerpiece of the necklace, I began thinking about what to dangle from the bottom!

I found a stash of vintage beads in shades of yellow...

...and started to form ten sets of opaque and clear yellow with brown beaded patterns on eye pins.

With the beads on the eye pins, I rounded the edges of each pin into a loop with jewelry pliers.

My finished group!

I connected two sets of my bead groups and set them down to see where they'd hang best.

I counted the holes on the necklace plate to make the bead placement even, and connected my beads to the plate with jump rings.

It doesn't stop there!!  To give the piece a little extra something, I took some white fringe and thread...

...trimmed off the gold edging of the trim that wasn't going to be seen...

...and began stitching the trim to the necklace on the back side.  The holes on the plate worked perfectly to hand stitch the trim to the necklace.

After a few minutes, the trim was secure!

I'm using suede trim to keep this necklace around my neck, so I worked on two final sets of larger beads to be the spacers between the suede and the necklace plate.

How 'bout that for a brand new necklace??

I wore it out with pals and paired it with a simple white tank - you really can wear basics with this necklace, since it's a total stand out piece!

I've been seeing this trend everywhere, so now I have my own, DIY'ed version!!

The perfect statement necklace, right??