Trash to Treasure

It's time again for another Happy Mango Beads beading contest!  This time it's called Trash to Treasure and it's designed to make you reduce, reuse, recycle!  Categories include "natural" materials, recycled glass, paper, etc.  I simply went through my garage and found all the extra crap that has been lying around and waited for inspiration.  Here's what I found:

 And old, broken drill...

 a bunch of random stuff, including the cap to my old thermostat, a level, an old eraser, some hex nuts, various and sundry electronics pieces from when my hubby was extra geeky, a flashlight cup...

and my old kitchen faucet that had some FANtastic copper pipe and fittings with the kind of patina a jewelry maker could spend hours trying to reproduce.

I proceeded to cut "beads" from the copper pipe and take off every copper fitting and hex nut.  This stuff is fantastic. 

I was having a hard time coming up with jewelry inspiration for my new junk.  Originally I thought I would wire crochet it all, as that has become my absolute favorite thing to do recently.  But I thought I would challenge myself to do something different.

I have been coveting Lune Design's (Keirsten Giles) Ancient Roman Glass necklace (left) ever since HMB had a beading tutorial about it a few weeks ago. So, since imitation is the highest form of flattery, I thought I would use her beautiful necklace as inspiration for my piece. 







I used my lovely brass "beads" from my kitchen faucet, recycled paper beads from Bead for Life and recycled glass beads from Indonesia from HMB as the strands.  For the clusters on the left and right sides of the necklaces, I searched my junk box for round pieces and adorned them with other bits of trash and recycled/vintage stuff.

Here's what I came up with:

 I drilled through this Honeywell thermostat cover and added a piece of purple recycled glass, vintage yellow plastic flower (from vintage flowers I bought on etsy) and secured them with a little Swarovski head pin.  The eraser its laying on became a flower.

 Drill sprocket with small washers and hex nut adhered to it using E6000.

 Awesome naturally-patina'ed hex nut from my faucet with large recycled paper bead

Smaller hex nut from my faucet with itty bitty lightbulb. I love this little piece.

A little eraser that I carved into a flower.  The relief was obvious in low light, but in bright light it was kind of lost.  In the end I put a dusting of gold Pearl Ex on there to highlight the petals. 








You put 'em all together and....

 

My last task was to find a clasp.  After looking for ideas in my clasp container, I saw a toggle clasp and it dawned on me.  Use a tap!  (little steel bar on left)  My husband banned me from using his dies but I talked him out of a tap.  :)  I assure you, this little tiny tap is getting much more use on this necklace than it ever has in the garage.  

I'm so excited about this necklace!  I put a lot of thought and work into it.  Many, many hours of hunting through old boxes in the garage, pillaging laptops, drills, fixtures etc.  Obviously I hope I win *something* but if not, it's ok because I forced myself out of my comfort zone and learned A LOT!!  Thanks again, HMB!