Neon statement necklace

After seeing all over beautiful statement necklaces, I really wanted to create one for myself. To recreate my version of these pieces, I used black-eyed beans since they are the sizes that I was looking for, they are super cheap and they can be transformed into any color you like! So if you want to make a fun and eco-friendly statement necklace using beans here are a few simple steps.

Here’s what you will need:

• Any kind of jewelry clasp
• Tweezers or toothpick
• Two link chains (10 inch & 6 inch)
• Two small jump rings
• X-acto knife and cutting board
• Any clear strong glue
• Leather hole puncher or a sharp needle
• Spray paint or nail polish in the color you like
• Beans (I used 59 and it’s available at any grocery store)
• Gold 5 mm pearl beads
• 8 x 6 inch clear sheet (2-3mm thick)

Since you can’t string the beans, we will glue the beans and pearl beads on the clear sheet & cutout the extra sheet at the end.Place your 8 x 6 inch clear sheet on your working space.

You can either spray paint your beans before you start gluing them to the clear sheet or paint them with nail polish when you finish making it. I spray painted the beans with 3 coats and put them to dry for 2-3 hours.

 Start with the large flower in the center. Using tweezers or a toothpick, add glue to a pearl bead and place it at the center of the large flower. Glue four beans around the pearl bead to create the first circle and make sure that the ‘black-eyed’ part of all the beans face the pearl beads.Create the second circle around the four beans making sure that the ‘black-eyed’ part of one bean does not face the ‘black-eyed’ part of another bean. Then create the third circle by adding pearl beads between the second circle beans.

Complete the right side of the large flower in the center and then move to the left side. For each flower, always begin in the middle and add the outer circles.After gluing the complete design, let it dry for 2-3 hours.

Once dry, place the clear sheet with the beans and pearl beads on a cutting board and trim the extra sheet around the design. Get as close to the beans and pearl beads as possible so when you wear the necklace, you don’t see the sheet. At the left and right end of the necklace, leave out the dashed area shown in the template. This will used to attach the design to the chain. Using the hole puncher, create a hole on the dot marks in the dashed area at the left and right ends of the design.Attach a jump ring to each of the holes. Add the 10 inch chain to the jump ring on the left and 6 inch chain to the jump ring on the right. Attach a clasp at the other end of the 6 inch chain.If you had opted for the nail polish option instead of spray paint, carefully apply 2-3 coats of a bright nail polish to the beans. You can add a coat of clear nail polish to both spray paint and nail polish version if you want them to be shiny. Let it dry and then you have your own neon statement necklace made of black-eyed beans!

Hope you find this idea usefull,

Kisses,

Irihoney