Thrift Store Crafting and Engagement Shoot Shopping

Today, my college roommate Annie took pictures of J and I at MIT. While we have amazing pictures from our wedding photographer Justin, I wanted some to commemorate our time at MIT since that is where we started our relationship. I am hoping to use one of these pictures as our Save the Date since we are very much an MIT couple, and I will use some of the others along with the wonderful Justin DeMutiis pictures in our guest book and scattered around the reception.

Anyone who knows me can tell you I am a last minute person - if MIT didn't teach me to not procrastinate, I figure it is hopeless. In true Briana fashion, I went shopping for J's outfit and my accessories yesterday. I chose a dress I had bought a few weeks ago ($35 from H&M!) but J needed an entirely new ensemble since his shorts are all stained and I wanted him to have a solid button up to go with my busy patterned sundress. H&M came through again! He got khaki shorts for $30 and a casual blue button up that looks decent with the sleeves rolled up for $20.

Unfortunately, H&M and Forever 21 did not have any jewelry for me. I had a pretty specific idea of what I wanted, so I dragged J to two craft stores and Walgreens for beads or other crafty bits but only found hooks and wires for making earrings. As a last ditch effort, we went into a thrift store to look for earrings. Instead, I found two necklaces in the style I wanted - big plastic beads :) Inspired by my future sister-in-law Abby's blog, I decided to cut apart one of the necklaces and salvage the beads for earrings.

Here is how I did it

 

Materials: 

• Cheap $8 thrift store necklace with pretty white beads
• scissors
• some sharp pointy plier thingy that J had (go to Abby's blog to find out what it is called!)
• hook earwires - used in dangly earrings, very cheap
• 3 inch head pins, very cheap
• some flat plier thingy that J used to cut the head pin (not pictured)

I cut the string of the necklace to sort out all the beads. I decided to use both the gold and the white beads and threaded them onto the head pin. As you can see below, the head pin was a bit too long so J snipped it and used his pliers to curve the head pin in a loop to secure it to the hook earwire. You can also see that the earwire is silver but the headwire and the small beads are gold.. poor planning on my part. Oh well!

too long!

just right! note the pretty purple polish
that J surprised me with :)

Final result! Ignore the messy hair - crafting is hard work :)

Cooperative engineers are so helpful in crafting, I have discovered. J assembled the earrings after accompanying me all over Central Square. He also helped with the layout and spacing of the words on our Save the Date sign. Look forward to the post on that tomorrow!