For my ‘exploring mixed materials’ workshop earlier this year I set myself the task of creating a series of necklaces from scratch in 2.5 hours, just like my students would be! Most of the materials came from high street shops such as WH Smith, Cass Art, Tiger, The Works and, of course, Hobbycraft. I also used (the dreaded, but useful) Amazon to find the balsa wood and faux leather, although I’m almost positive these things can be found elsewhere. Ebay and Etsy are also quite useful for sourcing materials, especially more unusual things like pre-cut wooden and acrylic shapes. My point here is that none of the materials I used were especially hard to find and with a little imagination you can probably use what you already have before you start buying extra materials. If you have kids they probably have some art supplies such as felt tips, paints and coloured paper at home. Most people have access to a printer at home or work to print out images for collages, and if you’ve ever done any knitting or sewing you might have some leftover fabrics or yarn lying around.

The Pearl Necklace: this bead came from some fashion jewellery that I never wore, but instead pulled apart and then kept all the best components. I started with the bead and then saw the frame (bought from Wilko years ago), and at this point the idea hit me - I would make a portrait necklace and the only portrait it could possibly be was The Girl with the Pearl Earring! I printed off an image of the The Girl and used felt tips to colour it in. This was partly an aesthetic choice and partly pragmatic - our printer is out of coloured ink and we’re too cheap to replace the cartridges! I used printed card with a dark pattern for the background, and then added a piece of silvery white wallpaper to make The Girl pop. A tiny sequin picks out the earring on the image and the painted faux leather added some texture to her hair wrap. The final touches were a little metallic paint around the frame and the large pearl bead dangling from the middle.

The Garden Necklace: For this piece I started with the semi-circle base and some floral card which lent itself to a garden theme. I painted up some balsa wood and pre-made plywood shapes in green, gold, orange and purple, then cut them into flower and grass shapes. What I liked about this was the layering of the card and the wooden shapes to add depth.

The Abstract Necklace: this piece was the trickiest to finish. It includes a lot of materials (painted ply, painted balsa, faux leather, copper tape and acrylic) and its 3-part design required more thought than a simple pendant as each piece had to work alone and as part of the whole. The first piece I made was the left hand semi-circle: a piece of painted plywood with crinkled copper tape on top for texture. Next, I painted some balsa wood with blue and copper tones and splashed some paint onto the pink faux leather. When those were dry I cut them and stuck them onto two more semi-circles. Finally, I found a small acrylic triangle in my box of offcuts and added that to balance out the raised texture of the copper tape at the other end of the piece.

I had so much fun making these necklaces! In each case my initial thought was ‘what am I going to do with this?’, but very soon the next steps became clear, obvious even, and I was able to make something that made sense. Setting parameters was essential i.e. to use floral paper or to choose a specific base piece, because otherwise the options would have been overwhelming and panic-inducing. I would absolutely recommend trying to make your own necklace at home using materials from your craft hoard, and don’t forget to pull out your kid’s felt tips and use your printer!