DIY Anthropologie Necklace for a fraction of the cost

I have some really great friends. Printmaking friends. I really could not survive without them. We have a lot of fun and work our butts off in the studio. My fellow printers and I came up with this craft and decided we should make this to wear over our robes at graduation. We are pretty random, I know. Alisa, Lisie, Sarah Jane and our professor Kathy and I made these at our print jam (Long A nights at the studio where we have delicious food and print our little hearts out) the other night. I love that we all collaborated this idea. Lisie came up with the initial idea to make these and it turned into something amazing!

Yes. We will be wearing these over our robes. And maybe hanging a strand from our ugly brown tassel? Who thought that was a good idea?

You want to learn? It's so easy

All you will need:

PAPERCLIPS

GLUE 
(I used Tacky glue and watered it down a tad and used a paint brush to apply it to the paper.

PAPER You can use drawer liner too. It doubles as the paper and the glue, since one side is sticky.
Cut the paper into 1" x 1.5" pieces. We decided to tear up some of our prints and use them for it. We thought it was fitting, being printmakers and all. Do a few tests, because the thickness of the paper will determine how long you will want to make the paper. I found the thinner the paper the easier it is to bend around and keep it glued. Just make sure it is sturdy enough when you put glue on it.

Here is a visual a whipped up for those of you who learn that way, with some detailed instructions below.

1. Gather all needed materials

2. The first layer should be the shortest one. Hook together 13 paper clips. (Measure the length you want the smallest layer to be and adjust accordingly) You want them all to be attached before you start wrapping the paper around the clips.

3. Apply glue to the back of the paper and wrap around each paperclip on that row.

4. Make more! Continue to add one additional paperclip for every new row, so it will increase in length.

5. Make as many or as little rows as you like. You can also do funky patterns, like this one found at Anthropologie by Lauren Manoogian. (did you see that price tag??? Unbelievable. I love Anthropologie but hello, can anybody really justify buying a necklace for 80 dollars. I couldn't bear the guilt.)
Once you have all of the rows made, attach them all to a single paperclip, do this for both ends. I added a third clip in the middle to give the neck a little more length and then covered those three with paper.

You could get really creative with this. Ours is freakishly colorful, but I love it. You could do some nice soft colors as well to fit this season's color fads.

ENJOY