making a statement (I think it's "I'm cheap!")

every so often, I like to cruise the "for the collector" section of anthropologie's jewelry. I can never afford any of it, but I frequently find pieces I like that are easily replicable. Take, for example, the fossil coral necklace above, which rings in at - would you guess? - a whopping $598. I couldn't quite believe it myself.

So I went to my local fine fabric store and spent awhile digging through the upholstery trims. I bought a yard each of three trims that I liked together, and pawed through stones at my local bead shop to find this big hunk of agate for $4. These trims come with a bit of twill tape attached to them, so that you can easily affix them along the seam of a pillow or cushion of an upholstery project, but this bit of twill tape (or "lip," as the ladies at the shop called it) is actually very loosely basted on, and can easily be removed with a bit of patience and a seam ripper or some sharp scissors. You just want to take your time removing the lip, so that you don't pull the threads of the trim and end up with an unsightly fuzzy explosion here and there on your trims. All told, I spent about $15, including the big African brass bead that I used as a toggle clasp.

Then it was just a matter of sitting down and following the picture as I stitched the trims together. All of the stitches are between the trims, hidden inside where they meet. I used a heavy dosing of tacky glue to seal the ends up, the wrapped them with leather and affixed my toggle bead and a strip of leather to wrap around it as a clasp. All in all, I'd say this project costs about $15 and takes about 5-10 hours to do, and not too difficult.

Thanks, anthro, for the inspiration!