ROCK THAT NECKLACE

Owning a collection of some sort is cool. Like Spongebob's-hidden-library-cool! Man I love episodes where they show how smart that sponge actually is.. It's just a thing when somebody owns like a hundreds porcellaine cows or 500 blue stamps or a hidden library with thousands of books. The last one is especially cool if you're a sponge.

There's something about that determination people have when it comes to hunting down pieces to add to their treasures. I used to collect rocks and gemstones. It was quite a tradition I had together with my mom. Whenever we'd go places, we'd try to find some new rad-looking rocks. Over time we collected quite a few of them...

Dang! There are probably lots of people owning like ten times as many but for me - this is a heck lot of rocks! Since I don't have nice way to display them in my room I stored them away for some time. The other day though, I saw this cute tutorial on how to make a necklace using those gems. So yeah I'm not claiming this idea to be mine and should I ever find my way back to that blog I'll for sure post the link. I'm terrible at bookmarking things like this... 

Well it wasn't my idea, but I'm gonna show you how I created my necklace anyway! To make this fancy-looking rock-necklace you'll need:

I used thin golden wire, some left-over chain, bits to hold the whole thing together and obviously - rocks. I wanted my necklace to be kinda ombré - because I'm a hispter like that. Haha. No, I just liked the texture of these rocks and they happened to be matching colors. 

To start with, you should tie a knot around the rock. Find a good place for it to stay on there. Some sides of the rock are probably better than others, for it to not slip off again. And then wrap, wrap, wrap, wrap! The dea is simple - making it real a whole other thing. I'm telling you, some of these things were beasts not willing to wear a golden wire dress... Here's my advise: Do a lot of knotting. Go under wire parts that have already been wrapped, with the end of the wire and try to make it a real tied net, not just a spiral wrapped around it tiedly. Oh yeah and don't pull too tight, this wire can't handle strong girls apparently. 

And here my focus failed me - it's okay iPhone someday you'll, too, be able to shot macro photos like a Canon 7D. I'm actually sure about that. Anyway, once you wrapped the rock so it won't fall out of its new golden net, you put a ring on the top part and twist it around a few times so it stays on there. 

Now connect that trinket to the chain. You can either use the same or one more ring for that. I used the same one. Also I added the chain lock to the ends of my chian piece and tadaaa, necklace version number one - done!

But loving precious looking things - I wanted more! So I went and fought the battle of wrapping rocks. I'm telling you, the smoother the rock's surface, the more of a pain it is to wrap. It took me some time to figure out the right technique but after all I couldn't let a piece of compressed sand and dirt (isn't that what rock are made of??) triumph over me. Never! And because I'm a fighter like that, after about an hour this is what my final result looked like.

It's a bit heavy but I'm thrilled to pair this with a cute summer dress or a blouse! 
Okay, now I'm off to bed to rock another week of school! Pun intended!
Lots of Love, Tabea ♥