Adding Color to Your Neutral Accessories

2 Materials
$10
20 Minutes
Easy

Even with neutral accessories you can add color to an outfit with a little creativity. Both Lesley and Charlotte approached the idea differently so we could try to cover all of the bases.There are more than one kind of DIY you could incorporate for the idea of adding color to your neutral accessories.

1– Paint your earrings

2- Add tassels to your necklace

3- Glue buttons (or any colorful items) to your necklace

4– Hang colorful things from your necklace ( Lesley used a brooch), but how about multicolored paperclips or wine charms?


The thought of transforming what you already have to something new is good for some pieces in your collection, but obviously not all of them. If you ask me, I would say to choose:

1-Pieces that you have more than one like it (for example, if you have 2 or 3 silver pendants that are similar, why not decorate one of them?)

2-Something you have that you haven’t worn in years. Even if it was expensive or sentimental, it doesn’t bring you joy just sitting around. Analyze why you don’t wear it, and maybe you can change it up.

3– Something you like yet it’s not a good color/metal for your coloring. Especially since our coloring changes over the years, it’s good to be able to make it complimentary to your complexion.

Painting your Neutral Accessories

This is not the first time (or I’m sure it won’t be the last) to paint my earrings. In fact it was the subject of discussion on an  Instagram post this spring. In the past I’ve painted my earrings so they would show up against my hair color. What did I use to paint them? Fingernail polish!!


Insider tip: Painting your earrings with fingernail polish works because your earrings don’t rub against your skin much. It could also work for pendants and some necklaces depending on which portion you wanted to paint. For bracelets, you’d be better off using an enamel paint.


With the above earrings, I bought them with the idea I would paint them because they just don’t have much color to them. I decided to try adding dots of different colors all over them.

For these earrings, I painted the silver metal with a red nail polish. Silver isn’t as good for my complexion, so I gave it a warmer hue with the red.


Insider tip: The best part of this exercise is if you don’t like it, don’t worry. You can always repaint it with another color. Sometimes fingernail polish remover would work to take it off also.

Adding Extras to your Necklace


Now I wanted to get creative with a gold necklace that I’ve had for ages. Even though I wanted to add color to it, I didn’t want to give up the possibility of wearing it plain at a later date. So I created some tassels. If you want to leave the tassels on forever, then it’d be better to have the neck of the tassel be around the necklace for extra support.


However, I wanted to be able to take them off, so I created a cord to attach to the necklace.


Insider tip: If you want to be able to interchange the tassels, it’s better to attach them via a lobster clasp, which are inexpensive and easy to purchase.


I used embroidery thread and wound it around a business card. The first one took about 10 minutes, but after that, they were each an easy 3 minute project.

So adding color to your neutral accessories is a great way to give an outfit more color and pop.

Suggested materials:
  • Embroidery thread   (JoAnne Fabrics)
  • Nail Polish   (drug store)

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Jodie Filogomo
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