Making a treasure necklace

All the Keys to Emerald City started out life as a junky old pot metal necklace interspersed with red plastic beads. I wanted to use it as the base strand for a charm necklace, wiring the treasures on to beads that had been added specifically to serve as anchors, but I had no clear idea at first what the theme or colors would be. I had many collections of items waiting for the right home, but it took some deep green computer circuit boards with their silver-colored designs to bring the correct items together with the pot metal necklace.

Sorting through my collections, I was able to pull together a wonderful assortment of non-matching green vintage buttons in graduated sizes, green glass beads in several sizes that looked good with the buttons, a large collection of silver and pewter charms and do-dads, and (of course) some circuit board pieces. I especially liked the softer antiqued silver and the pewter pieces since the pot metal beads have a soft, warm pewter-like glow. I knew this was going to work when I found some pewter colored glass 6o pony beads with holes large enough to accommodate the wire for the charms.

I chose an old skeleton key first, as my focal “charm.” Ranging upwards on both sides of the key went some smaller mechanic’s keys and other symbols that I love: stars, sun, heart, circuit boards and a hammer (signifying my love/hate relationship with computers), floral motifs, a cross, and wire spirals.

Here are the basic steps that I took to create All the Keys to Emerald City necklace shown above. With a few modifications, the instructions can easily be adapted to any themed set of treasures you wish to use.

Materials:
Old necklace to restring, or set of large beads for base strand
Collection of charms, buttons, baubles, and treasures
4 and 6mm round beads
8/0 seed beads
6/0 pony beads
2 wide holed beads, bead caps, or cones
Nymo thread
22 gauge colored wire
6″ sterling silver wire
Clasp or toggle set
Crimps
Softflex or Beadalon

Step by step instructions