Doesn’t Mustard Octagons sound like the name of a band? Was it just me, or did you, too, brainstorm names of bands you would be in if you could be in a band? Or if you could even play an instrument. Or even carry a tune in a bucket. (My mom always said, “Thank goodness you can dance.”) No? No band names for you? Just me? OK.

Yes, I totally busted out the new camo shirt today. I’ve never really worn camo in my everyday dress, but I really like the way it turned out. For a Target shirt, it’s pretty substantial, so it layers well. And clearly, it was a hit, because, after nap, BB wanted to wear his camo shirt, too. Yep, we were twinsies on our afternoon trip to the park. We only got a handful of funny looks.

Sidenote: Do you think the popularity of Duck Dynasty is what has caused camo to become a “thing” this year? I’ve never seen an episode, so I really have no idea what it’s all about, although I assume duck hunting? Is it possible this little reality show has caused a trend? These are the things I ponder.

But we’re not here for the camo. We’re here for “creative habit“. Feeling pretty good about how yesterday’s project turned out, I just pulled an old thrifted piece of jewelry out of my bag, cut it apart, and got to work reconfiguring it.

This necklace has two different sized mustard-colored octagonal beads, trimmed out with little silver beads and tiny mustard seed beads.

My original thought was to create something using the big octagons only, attaching them to gold wire and chain, but there’s something about the silver that makes them pop.

I used up most of my sterling silver chain yesterday, so I dug around in my leftovers to see if I had anything else I could use. I have quite a collection of pieces that my Adopted California Father has given me through the years (he knows I like to redesign pieces, so he finds things and passes them along), and this one seemed to fit the bill. It has some funky, angular silver pieces attached with jump rings.

I used the little silver beads from the original necklace, just to see how it looked. I like it, so I used them around each octagon. There weren’t enough, so I had to scrounge again for something else to work. This is definitely a hodge-podge piece.

I assembled everything and took some mirror selfies. Looked good to me. Then I went to put on lipstick before setting up my camera on my makeshift tripod. (That’s right, I don’t like to take photos without lipstick. I’ve lived in California a long time, but I’m still a Southern girl at heart.) When I looked in the mirror, I realized I had put the necklace together incorrectly – the beads on the left side of the necklace were too close together – so I took it apart and fixed it.

There. That’s better.

And just for kicks, a before and after:

I promise I’m not going to make a necklace every day this month, but they are pretty fun to do. Some people sing in a band, some people go duck hunting, I make statement necklaces.

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This post is part of a 31 day series. Find all the posts in this series here.

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