Jewelery and headpiece...

I finally got the call the other day.

You know, "the" call.

My dress is finally in! I nearly jumped out of my chair with excitement when I saw the number on the phone. Now, now - don't start thinking I'm one of those brides who is obsessed with the dress (and shows about dresses). I'm not that bad. The thing is, I have never actually seen my dress before. I saw a very very similar dress - the one the designer made... but this is the dress I made - well, not really. Actually its almost the same as the designers original, I just changed the neckline, added some bling to the buttons, cut off the train and had them add pockets.

Anyway, the point is - the dress is finally here for me to see. When the woman called me to let me know it was in, she added; "we have a note here to remind you to bring your Grandmother's jewelry..."

Err... right.

ugly attempt at cute headband.

Back when I first put in the order for my dress, I had tried on a headband. LOVED the headband, thought it was cute and unique. BUT... the headband was $200 and it was made out of simple elements that I had access to. I had also picked out some very simple jewelry that would balance all the bling of the headband. It was very simple. So simple in fact, that as soon as we left the shop, I started to regret that decision. But I drove home cheerfully thinking of how easy it would be to recreate the headband I so loved. Right. I tried for a few months to copy said headband. The results were absolutely disastrous (see?). I tried so many ways to make a cute headband... from taking apart blingy jewels from Forever 21 (see right) to making one out of seed beads based on an adorably cute bracelet I saw. Well, that didn't go over at all. Seed beads are realllllllly tiny. Too tiny for my big fingers, so scratch that idea.

I think I spent about $150 in the process of trying to not spend $200 on a headband and yet - I still do not have a headband. Sometimes, DIY just goes wrong. Horribly, Horribly wrong. I became so disenfranchised over the headband that I started to hate it. Magically then, I hated the whole idea. No headband, no simple jewelry that I didn't even like.

Fast forward to about a month ago when I was cleaning out my jewelry box and stumbled upon a set of rosary beads that I had taken from my great grandmother's hoards of jewelry after she passed away in 1998. My Great Grandmother was not Catholic, so I think she had these rosary beads simply because she liked the jewels on them. I don't know why out of all that she had I picked the rosary beads, probably because I was religious at the time.. or maybe I just liked the way they looked too. Whatever the case, when I found them a month ago, I decided that I would take the necklace apart and use the beads to create something new... well really, it was something old. Two birds, one stone!

I had called the dress shop to see if I could get a refund for my simple jewelry because I had my Great Grandmother's beads that I wanted to use as my something old. They told me I should wait until the dress came in and then bring it down to see if I liked how it looked all together.

Only.... I never made the necklace and earrings, I had only disassembled the rosary beads and cleaned everything. That was Friday afternoon.

Today:

Yes, I spent some time on these this weekend. I had to mess around quite a bit. Initially, I wanted to have rhinestones on the necklace, but I couldn't figure out how to get the small rhinestone buttons I had purchased onto the chain while keeping them all facing the same way. Then, I made a few sets of earrings, the two pair shown here are the only two that were any good. The set to the left is what I wanted, but they don't hang as pretty in my ears as they do on the basket here. So I don't know which pair I will choose, but both of them are cute enough. I have quite a few of the beads from the rosary left over, so I will probably make a bracelet. But I'm going to save 1 bead each for the bridesmaids who are descendants and put it on the necklaces I made them in the same place I put the blue beads on my necklace above. 

Finally, about an hour ago, I conquered the "head piece". I decided that I wanted to copy the silk shantung flower on my dress, and put them in my hair. The results:

spin and twirl method

spiral sewn method.

The flower on my dress was made by the spin and twirl method, but I think I like the spiral sewn flowers I made better, they just seem a bit more polished. For a DIY tutorial on the flowers, you'll have to consults the pros:  Spin and twirl here, spiral sewn here. Though clearly, I used the glue gun for steps 7 and 8 for the spiral sewn flowers. Hand sewing is for chumps.

So what do you think? Which set of earrings? Which flowers? I'll be sure to let you know how the dress looks tomorrow.