Upcycled Jewellery

Almost a year ago a friend of mine broke her favourite mug, and instead of throwing away the pieces, she brought them all over to me to see what I could do with them. It resulted in a lovely mosaic necklace (you can see the original post here). Being a bit of a hoarder, I didn't throw the leftover pieces away once I'd made the pendant - I kept them despite moving house in the interim. Originally she wanted to make some other necklaces for her family but somehow never got around to it. This week I was thinking about what designs to make with my new haul of pendant bezels and remembered the mug. After a lot of searching, I finally found my broken china and glass bag of goodies.

And got to work with smashing it up some more... Woah! I had totally forgotten that porcelain is much tougher than glass so you need a lot more muscle to break it into pieces. And once you DO manage to break it... the pieces fly even further afield! One bit managed to totally clear the kitchen counter and land next to the sink on the other side of the kitchen. That's a jump of nearly two metres. But I did manage to cut some successful pieces and was quite pleased with what I'd cut.

Next came the sanding process... ARGH! I sand every piece of a mosaic pendant so that there are no sharp corners for fingers to catch on. Because the porcelain is so much tougher than glass, it was really hard to sand down - and to actually soften the edges took much much longer than it does normally. But eventually they were sanded down properly, attached and left to dry for 24 hours.

And here they are - grouted and finished. 3 new pendants based on one broken mug by Cath Kidston. What do you think?

p.s. Sorry about the photos -  I've been a bit excited about using Instagr.am this week...