Necklace Refashion-Leopard

          I have had this necklace staring at me for 4 months just wanting to be refashioned.  I won it in a Bunco game back in September.  I love these kinds of necklaces, but I am not a pink girl.  I don't know what it is, but pink has always been kind of a struggle for me, so I knew immediately that I wanted to refashion it.

        For this project, you need:

1. Necklace to refashion
2. Acrylic paint- Whatever colors work for you
3. Mod Podge
4. Tissue paper
5. Paint brushes
6. (I ended up not needing the Xacto knife, but I thought I would need it for the sharp point edge on the sides of the beads with the tissue paper, but my fingers worked just fine.)

The first step was to pick a base color that could create a texture.

 This brown acrylic paint was becoming very goopy inside, but that was perfect as I wanted to add some texture to these beads.  I took an old paint brush and stippled/pounded the brown paint onto all of the bright pink beads.

 

As you can see here, the brown didn't cover the pink, but that is perfectly fine as I was going to be putting on a thicker, richer color over top. 

Here you see that I used a dark maroon color over top of the brown..... now this was more of the color that I was wanting over the hot pink.

I went through and painted both sides of the hot pink beads (using the stipple/pounding "technique"), first with the brown, then with the maroon paint, letting the top dry first before turning it over to do the back side.

So here we are with the hot pink beads completely covered and painted maroon.  I was really happy with the color and texture, but they were more matte and I wanted them to be more glossy so that they looked like real beads and not like they were painted.....

 So out comes the trusty Mod Podge.

 Take the Mod Podge and simply just coat each of the painted beads.  

 When that is all coated, let it dry.  It will dry clear, but it will create a glossy finish to give the beads a "real" look instead of a painted look.

 Here you can see that the left ones went clear while the right ones were still drying.

Next step- Tissue Paper!  Now, if you remember this post, I am repeating the same technique with the same tissue paper..... but this is a smaller surface and may be a bit more tedious.

 This stuff is seriously so easy to work with. 

 Paint the surface

 rip a piece of tissue paper and stick it on it

 paint over the tissue paper and press down as you move along to make it as smooth as possible.

 I did find that while working on the tissue paper, it really worked great to drape the necklace over 2 bottles of paint to get it up off of the surface so that it didn't stick.

After doing both sides of all 7 beads, the necklace is done!

 I really do think that with the layers and the Mod Podge, it really will hold up as long as you don't take something sharp to it ;-)

 Before and After

It was nice before, but it became ME after

Here it is on!

So what jewelry pieces aren't quite right for you?  Do you have an awesome piece that could just use a little creativity?  This is a piece that I can totally see myself wearing often as a great statement piece.  I do love my large necklaces!