A peacock, Anthropologie, and vintage beads - the perfect combination in my mind!

For the last few years now, Anthropologie has been carrying a line of charms for customers to create their own personal jewelry. Like many other retailers carrying similar collections, you don't have to be a jewelry maker to put together your own necklace or bracelet. The charms come with lobster clasps on them for easy attachment or removal to any chain. The combination options are endless!

I was lucky enough to score this multi colored rhinestone peacock at Anthro last Spring - originally $22, I got him for $4.95! In my last post, I debuted a necklace made from repurposed vintage jewelry that someone gave me and also mentioned I used the rest of the gold textured beads on another project. Well, here it is. Actually, both the textured gold beads and the rhinestone beads came from the same necklace. The only beads I added in were the faceted colored stones to match the colors in the peacock.

I removed the lobster clasp from the top of the peacock so it would be more of a traditional pendant. When designing the necklace, I knew I wanted to do something more special than just stringing him on a strand of beads. So I came up with the idea to attach more strands to the open metal work of his feathers. This resulted in 3 strands that eventually blend together into 1. It was pretty tricky to get them all to the right length while trying to keep the random pattern together.

Overall I am very pleased with how it turned out. The total look is still very vintage, and it's always fun to breath new life into old beads!