Anthro Limitless Strands Necklace

How is your Holiday shopping going? Have you started? I will confess I have not. But I have been talking about starting. Does that count?

I have been browsing online though - and of course I inevitably wandered over to Anthro. You will not believe what I found there. Well, you probably will believe it if you read the post title. :)

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I absolutely fell in love with this necklace. I actually gasped when I saw it. Don’t you think this would be perfect for just about any outfit – or a holiday party? It’s just yummy.

I thought I’d help us both out by creating a knockoff – you can never have too many options for Christmas ideas right?

Here’s my version  . . .

Mine is a little less “strandy” than theirs but that was intentional. You could easily just add more strands to yours though if you would like it fuller. Other than that I didn’t change much because hey. Yummy.

Here’s what you’ll need to create this cutie . . .

• 1 1/2″ Wide Ribbon – 3 1/4 yards
• Stringing Cord
• Small Glass Beads
• Large Round Beads – 5/8″ (any type)
• Crimp Beads – 20
• Jump Rings – 6
• Thread

Start by stringing your beads. Cut an 11″ piece of stringing cord.

Thread a crimp bead onto the cord and loop the end around a jump ring, then thread the cord back through the crimp bead. Leave a tail of about 1″. Crimp the bead tightly, but leave a little loop so the crimp bead is not right up against the jump ring. When you start adding more cords to the ring you don’t want them too tight and all smashed up against the jump ring. It won’t lay nicely.

Thread beads onto the cording – it will help control the cording if you thread the loose end through a needle.

As you thread the beads, make sure they cover the small end of the cording as well.

Continue threading beads until your cord is about 8 inches. Finish the cording the same way you did the other end, with a crimp bead and jump ring. Cut your cording so you have about one inch left and feed that back through your beads.

Repeat this process, adding another strand of cording to one of the jump rings on the strand you just made.

Continue adding strands and beads until there are five strands on the jump rings.

Make a second group of five strands.

Link the two strand groups together with a single jump ring on each end. It might seem to have made more sense to added all the strands to one large jump ring but I was afraid that they wouldn’t lay straight – that all those loops on one ring might be too much.

Cut your ribbon into four 28″ pieces. Turn up one end of each of the strips and sew the edge down to hem it, about 1/4″.

Lay two of the strips together, with the hemmed ends touching and facing together, and sew the long sides together using a 1/4″ seam allowance. Taper the end opposite the one you hemmed to a point. Repeat with the other two strips. Trim the ribbon off the ends that are tapered around the stitching lines.

Turn the strips right side out.

Press the strips lightly.

Feed two of your large beads into the casing of one of the strips. Hand sew one jump ring to the hemmed end. Don’t clip your thread.

Push the ring and strands into the casing so it begins to fold over itself. Work the strand into the casing so the ring is about one inch in. Insert the needle into the casing and bring it out at the point of the hem and ring.

Random Comment: It looks kind of like a pretty squid in this picture. :)

Make a few stitches sewing the ring and hem in place. Knot and clip your thread.

Make a knot in the ribbon casing so that it covers your stitching.

Push one of the beads down that are in your casing already up against the knot. Tie another knot on the other side. Repeat for the last bead. So you should have three knots and two beads between them.

If you’d like the necklace a bit longer, you can just knot the end. I like it shorter so I tied a bow.

I love the combo of the beads and the satin ribbon – they’re so pretty together.

Is there an Anthro necklace you’ve fallen in love with? In case you’ve missed it, there is a new Tutorial Request Feature here at Flamingo Toes. You can fill out this handy form and let me know all about your item and I’ll try and create a tutorial for it!

What do you think? Are you in love with this one too? Or at least strong like?? :) I have a few more knockoff pieces planned in the next month or so – hopefully they’ll be a piece you’ve been wanting to create as gifts too!

Entering this in Kim at 733′s great contest!