Re-purposing Thrift store Finds

I tend to be a pretty thrifty person and love to hit garage sales and consignment shops. Beads and finding are getting up there in price so I always keep an eye out for items I can re-purpose. I found a long beaded necklace that was about $5.00 at goodwill about a month ago. I liked the individual beads but wouldn't wear the necklace myself. I took the piece apart and created a memory bracelet for a relative for Christmas.

I added a couple elements that weren't in the original piece but also made two other pieces for a gift and have more beads left. The necklace had a lot of very distinctive beads to use.

This is a great way to be green and save money. The memory wire goes along way and I have several more bracelets that I will be making off of this package. So for about nine dollars so far I've made 3 pieces and could use the left over beads to make several sets of earrings. When using memory wire don't use your regular jewelry cutters. They will be damaged by them so I just used regular metal cutters from the garage and filed the end if needed and turned the end into a loop.