Black Diamond Necklace

I'm not one to flip through fashion magazines and say, "Ooh, I have to have that!"  I do enjoy thumbing through and getting inspiration, but I won't spend the money on any of it.  I guess I'm just too cheap!  

So, when I last looked through one, I saw this necklace that was pretty pretentious.  This necklace was a black diamond necklace with a black diamond "frog prince" as a pendant.  This necklace was so expensive that a price must be requested.  I went to the website, aaronbasha.com, you can view Mr. Frog Prince as an enamel pendant or diamond encrusted one.  And they still don't give a price.

I thought, I got something at home that would look just as nice, and I can save about $15K. Does anyone remember my Tickled Pink Necklace from last year?  Well, I know now that I could have made that necklace so much easier if I just asked someone how to do it.  I work with a few ladies that know how to piece jewelry together so they told me what I "could have done".  Well, better late than never.

I decided to deconstruct the Tickled Pink Necklace to make my new one.  I bought some almost black eye pins, took out my tool kit and went to work.

I first took all the pink nugget stones off of the existing necklace.  I was going to only place two stones on each pin and make a chain of those.

I had to buy pins that were really long, so I ended up using one pin to make two links.  As you can see, I may have learned what to do, but not really how to do it.  My final link has some pretty crazy looking eyes and the post is no longer straight.  Hey, good thing I'm not charging admission for this!

I made a length of this before I really thought about how I was going to affix my centerpiece onto the necklace.  

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Ok, so Step 1 is done; necklace links are complete.  Step 2 is to attach or hang my new pendant.  Kj, don't kill me, but I took the bracelet you gave me for my birthday and took it apart.  It was a black diamond [rhinestone] flower on a hinged bangle bracelet.  It was a bit top-heavy and rotated around my wrist when I wore it.  I loved it, though, and knew that was going to be my centerpiece.

Isn't that the perfect flower?  Ok, so I had Vince take this task on.  I said, "Here, take this flower off the bracelet, but don't harm the flower." He came back having used some serious wire cutters with the flower off and the bangle detached.  There was no saving the bangle, though.

The backside of the flower had some gnarly jagged edges from where it was soldered to the bangle, so he took my Dremel tool (that Kj gave me one year) and ground them down to a smooth surface.

I made a bail out of a short piece of coated wire and two crimp beads.  As you can see in the pics of the back of the flower, there are holes.  I threaded the coated wire through the holes to make the bail.

From the front, you can't see the wire.  I then found the middle of the necklace and opened it up so it was two strands of links.  I removed a few links from each side and attached each side to the wire bail.

I will wear it to work or bring in it so the jewelry chicks can see it.  Maybe they can give me a better idea for the bail.  Otherwise, I love it.

All it takes is a magazine pic and the motivation to create a designer knockoff on a dime to have something "new to you".  Aaron Basha, you can keep your Frog Prince!