3 Layered Necklaces: The Good Buy Book - New Things Edition

Welcome to another round-up of three layered necklaces that I have worn as part of my outfit of the day with discussion of how I put these necklaces together. Today's necklace post is designed to dovetail with The Good Buy/Good-Bye Book series hosted by Nancy at Nancy's Fashion Style and Shelbee at Shelbee on the Edge. This month they are focusing on New Things...including new wardrobe items purchased, gifted, or unworn. You can check out the round-ups here and here.

While I haven't been purchasing things for my closet lately (all my money goes to Fire Mountain Gems & Beads), the teal suede loafers that I purchased at the end of last winter have been in heavy rotation this fall and winter and absolutely qualify as a Good Buy.

I had been keeping an eye out for a pair of dark teal shoes for fall/winter without much luck for about a year when I stumbled upon this gorgeous pair of Abay Smoking Flats on the Nine West site, on sale for $33.59! (Note: they are still available, currently $59.99, and come in a lot of different colors. Sizes are limited.) I love the suede leather and the pointy-toe smoking flat style. They fit perfectly in size 9 from the first moment. (I wear either an 8 1/2 or 9, but more often a 9 these days, especially in a pointy-toed shoe.)

The color is spectacular and surprisingly versatile! I admit that I sometimes struggle with my various shades of teal, as some are more blue and some are more green, some are brighter and some are more muted, etc. For my new shoes, I'd wanted a teal that leaned toward the green-teal end of the spectrum and that was dark and more muted since my cool weather wardrobe tends that direction. These shoes checked all the boxes.

In Outfit #1, I paired the teal flats with "green-teal" plaid pants and a "dusky teal" marl top for a top to bottom all-teal look. (I have my own idiosyncratic names for various colors that I use in my wardrobe inventory/tracking system.) Because of the yellow stripe in the plaid, I wanted a layered necklace based on gold tones. This black/gold tooth/claw necklace has been a favorite of mine since I purchased it in 2013, and I always enjoy the bit of edge it brings to an outfit. Next I added a couple of my current go-to options: the gold paper clip chain with the Alice in Wonderland charm and the mixed metal ring collar necklace. It still felt like it was missing something, so I added this plain bar necklace with a slight horizontal element and that did the job. It's interesting how something as subtle as that can make a difference.

Of course I also took the opportunity to add a bracelet stack to the outfit, consisting primarily of DIY bead bracelets (plus that one gold bead bracelet from the Amazon set that I wear constantly, back in stock here). To give a sense of size, the two teal bracelets are made from 6mm round beads...the upper shiny one is from crystal pearls and the lower one is from Czech glass druk beads.

Outfit #2 includes a "dark teal-green" sweater and beige knit pants for a very simple look. I went for an all-silver tone layered necklace this time, starting with the long multi-circle necklace I had recently purchased from Fire Mountain Gems & Beads. The silver paper clip chain with White Rabbit charm was an obvious choice, but for something a little different for me, I also added the two-strand flat hammered silver disk necklace. I really liked how this one turned out!

So far the teal flats had gone beautifully with a variety of green-teal colors, but how would they fare when worn with a blue-teal? Outfit #3 from earlier this month put this to the test by pairing the teal flats with a "peacock blue" cowl neck top and dark blue jeans. You can tell that the two pieces aren't the same color, but I think it looks just fine! I could have attempted to blend the shades with the addition of a print or ombré scarf, but with this cowl neck, a scarf didn't make much sense to me. Instead I put together a very easy layered necklace that nevertheless added quite a bit of punch to the outfit as the metal tones show up so well against the blue background.

The layers consist of a necklace with multiple chains in various metals, a necklace with multiple chains and peacock blue beads, and a silver chain with a daisy pendant. Although none of the chains are particularly thick, they do add up to a nice bulky whole. I didn't put on a scarf as a bridge piece, but my small stack of bracelets does serve in that capacity. You can see the two DIY teal bead bracelets from Outfit #1 above plus two "print" bracelets that taken together cover a range of teal shades.

The two print bracelets are ones I made over my winter vacation from DIY paper beads using glass or plastic pearls as spacers. The top bracelet is made from 1" long skinny bicone paper beads that started their life as a photograph of coral in The Economist magazine. The third bracelet is made from 0.5" long tube paper beads created from a photograph of some peacock feather earring findings in a Fire Mountain Gems & Beads catalog. After making the tube beads, I painted the ends with metallic acrylic paint in Peacock Blue. If these paper beads intrigue you, I will be putting a tutorial together describing how I made my beads (though of course there are already a lot of useful tutorials on Pinterest!).

Finally, here is Bonus Outfit #4 demonstrating that I do sometimes wear a scarf and other accent colors with my teal top + flats combo! This is the same "dusky teal" marl top from Outfit #1, this time worn with denim ankle pants. I like how the floral scarf looks with the simple white scarf ring (from this pack). In the bracelet stack, once again the two DIY teal bead bracelets make their appearance, accompanied by DIY seed bead and DIY stone bead bracelets in various light pink and lavender/purple shades.

Do you have any clothing or accessories that you've bought or made that have proven themselves as Good Buys lately?

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