DIY Swarovski Knock Off Necklace

Remember those pretty beads I showed you from my trip to Ouray last week? Well they are now a fancy necklace, made by none other than myself.



But first I want to show you my inspiration piece. The Glamour Large Necklace from Swarovski. I saw it a few years ago (like before Pinterest, so it took me a while to find a picture) at the mall where I work and instantly fell in love! It's so pretty, but it was out of my price range ($700) and being a couple of years old, It is no longer available. However, the first time I had laid eyes on it my brain instantly said "I could totally make that myself!" And that's just what I did.



To make my necklace I made a trip to Joann's for some jewelry making supplies, I picked up some fasteners, jump rings, crimp beads, and some beading thread. I already had the little pliers, beading needles, and super glue.





The first step was sorting my beads, I had three strands of the yellow and grey glass beads, and one strand of the yellow granite looking beads, everything got divided into three equal piles, and then the yellow glass beads divided into two from there. Oh, and since this was my first jewelry making venture I don't have one of those fancy beading work stations and had to improvise. Besides, my towel works just fine!





Here are the beads once they've been strung. Three solid grey strands and three yellow strands with the granite looking beads in the center.





To the secure the ends of the strands together first I slid a crimp bead over the three strands. Then I used a double overhand knot with a jump ring in the knot. Once my knot was nice and tight, I dabbed a little super glue on the knot before pulling the tails through the crimp bead and crimping. That may be a little over kill, but better safe than sorry.





This is how the the strands look after all that. I'm not going to lie, the first side was so much easier than the other side. Keeping the threads even and somewhat tight was a pain.





Now that all the strands were secured with jump rings on the ends, looping them around each other was a piece of cake. I just used another jump ring to bring the corresponding ends together.





Here's a close up of the closure and how I gathered the ends of the strands together. See both ends of the groups of strands has one tiny jump ring, which are then joined with the larger jump rings that attach to the little toggle clasp. Oh, and you don't have to double up the larger jump rings, I just thought it looked better this way.





Sooo, like it? I wish I could remember what type of stone the granite-y ones are, but you could really do this with any type of small beads.





Now that I've worn it a couple of times here's how I would do it differently. First I'd probably have one more strand on the yellow side. The grey beads are a bit larger so the weight is off a little and I have to adjust it every so often. Secondly I probably would have splurged on two different thread colors. The black is kinda noticeable through the yellow beads. But other than that its holding up very nicely and I love it! I'm also excited to see what Megan came up with for her beads.



So, any jewelry makers out there want to tell me how I did, or any other tips I could use for next time? Is there a necklace that has been begging you to copy it for years like me? I would love to see your sparkly creations. Oh, and my friend Jenna is the queen of Frankensteining broken necklaces together so you should go see hers too!