Recycled Art: Fan Necklace

Fan Necklace

I made this choker necklace a month or two ago, when I became obsessed with jewelry design.

Aside from the beads (recycled from other necklaces and picked up cheap at Goodwill), the long black parts are created from parts of an old fan.

My grandmother collected fans for many, many years.  She wasn't terribly gentle with them, sticking them up on the wall with thumbtacks and between that, and the simple passage of time, many of them have crumbled apart.  The fans were divided among her kids and grandkids after her death.  I do have a couple that are lovely.  But most are pretty ramshackle.

Remains of a fan

Many of the fans have spines with interesting patterns though (plastic in the case of the pictured white fan; wood in the black fan I used for the necklace). That's what got me thinking. 

Old, thin wood splits frequently when drilled, so about half of the short spines fell apart before I ever got them in any useful shape.  Reinforcing them with a coat of black nail polish definitely helped, and so the necklace is relatively stable now.

The center pendant of the choker is part of the outside cover, with the original hand-painted gold design left intact. 

Somehow, I think my grandmother would be pleased with the re-use of her fan.