This morning I decided on my first project: take one or more pieces of jewelry from the thrift store and make it into something new. I went to Last Chance Thrift Store and spent some time looking through their jewelry cases. I looked at several different pieces before settling on a black wire-spring beaded bracelet and a gold seahorse pin with pink crystals.

I love seahorses, but this pin was something that I’d never, ever wear. There was a really pretty butterfly in blue, pink, and purple that I could have just clipped on the bracelet, but the point was to actually change a piece, not just put two pieces together, so I went with the seahorse.

I started with a metallic silver coat of enamel. It came out much brighter than I expected and I thought it would look a bit odd like that, so once it dried, I painted over it with black while letting some of the silver show through. I then topped off some areas with glitter, like the back fins and the tip of the nose. I had to scrape some of the paint off the pink crystals because it was too hard to paint around them, so I painted right over the top. Once dry, I put the beaded bracelet on and then clipped the seahorse on top. I think it came out great for a first project.