simple leather necklace

I have been on a leather kick lately, starting when I messed around with leather for the cuff bracelet in the book. It's a project a lot of people seemed taken with – I think because people realized that they didn’t need big leatherworking studios to make simple accessories.

I’m lucky that I live in a city with an incredibly well-stocked leather warehouse, where they are happy to sell me “necks” off the hides. This year, I bought a couple metallic leathers and made this very simple necklace for my sisters and mom. Look for leather suppliers in the upholstery section of your Yellow Pages (yep, I still use those) and in big, higher-end fabric stores. Using a pair of fabric shears keeps a clean edge.

I cut two circles – one smaller, one larger – and then cut across one edge to remove the curve. Then I stacked the smaller circle on top, made a guide hole with a needle through both layers, pushed a jump ring through, and added some chain and a clasp. This is one of those projects that is dead simple and luxe at the same time – a combination of qualities that I am particularly fond of!

pop-top holidays

Full disclosure to this post: our friend Andy – who started the company Escama Studio – has employed me in the past to come up with step-by-step tutorials. This is no exception. Andy appeared on our doorstep the morning after Viktor Lina from Project Runway rocked this pop-top necklace. Andy was hopped up on the idea of telling people how to make their own (he actually owns the patent for the design). So if you're in need of a last-minute gift and have a soda addiction that keeps you well-stashed with a source of pop tops, here's an idea.

Escama Studio also has a tutorial for a snowflake ornament that requires fewer pop tops. And my mother, who is a big fan of their designs, just sent this ornament to me, no crochet required!

take from me my lace

A Cup of Jo’s lovely giveaway the other week reminded me that I had yet to photograph this necklace I made. I bought this lace collar at a discount fabric store, then it sat in my random-little-nice-things stash for months. I recently pulled it out thinking I might tack it onto a linen pillow, but the graceful sweep led me toward a necklace. How I love asymmetrical things.

Making the necklace took a couple jump rings, some plain gold chain, a closure, and about ten minutes. Voila.

PS, I had never seen White Owl’s goods before (via A Cup of Jo). Looks like we share a thing for asymmetrical lace, and I love their feminine, bookish styling.

finders keepers

The other month, I saw some earrings made from vintage lace, suspended simply from a delicate gold wire. And what happened next is what always happens to me: I didn’t buy them (my mother’s mantra from growing up looping in my head, oh you could make something like that). And now I can’t find the artist who made them to show you all.

But when it came time to craft up a birthday present for my older sister, I remembered the lace. I foraged through my stuffed craft drawers and also came up with this shell, and this glistening little bead.

I trotted out the little bit of jewelry making that I know, and assembled this necklace. I can’t tell if it’s weird to give your sister a shell-berry-lace necklace (and weirder still to show it off here), but there’s something of nature in this piece that really appeals to me. It feels like a seascape in miniature, with the lace standing in for foamy waves, and the berry something you might find growing nearby in salty, scrubby brush.

And it makes me think of my grandmother, and the enduring image I have of her: barefoot in a bathing suit and sun hat, bent at the waist, combing the surf for treasures that she always managed to find.

I love most of all that she always knew there was something worthy, waiting to be discovered.